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OR, 



HEROIC DEEDS DONE IN METHODIST 
MISSIONARY FIELDS. 



X 



DANIEL WISE, D.D., 

Author of " Hkroic Methodists," " Sketches and Anecdotes of 
American Methodists," etc. 



From old chronicles where sleep in dust 
Names that once filled the world with trumpet tones 

* * * * fashion as I must. 
Quickened are they that touch the prophet's bones. 

Longfellow. 



NEW YORK 
PHILLIPS & HUNT 

CINCINNATI : 
WALDEN & STOWE. 

18S4. 








Copyright 1884, by 
PHILLIPS & HUNT, 

New York. 



PEEFATOKY NOTE. 



nnHE object of this volume is to deepen the 
-*■ interest of the youth of Methodism in our 
great missionary work. Its method is not that 
of the historian or biographer, but of an 
etcher, seizing on striking facts in the personal 
history of distinguished missionaries, and por- 
traying them in such lights and shades as may 
impress the imagination and win the youthful 
heart to sympathy with the divine work of 
teaching all nations the words of the Son of 
God. Hence the heroic side of the missionary 
character is largely brought into view. Its 
noble self-consecration upon the altar of Chris- 
tian charity ; its meek spirit of self-denial ; its 
lofty defiance of the perils of the sea, the forest 



4 Prefatory Note. 

jungle, the deadly fever, and the untutored 
savage; its sublime patience amid the most 
appalling difficulties, and its perseverance unto 
those initial victories which are the sure auguries 
of the final conquest of the world, are herein 
outlined in strict harmony with the truth of 
history. 

The writer is aware that less heroism is 
required in the missionary of to-day than in 
those who fought and fell in the beginning of 
the modern missionary crusade. The aegis of 
the civilized world protects him almost every- 
where, and in many nations the work of his 
predecessors has made it safe for him to preach 
where they had to do it standing in the jaws of 
death. Nevertheless, it is not entirely true that 
the heroic age in missionary history is past. 
The dangers, self-denials, and sacrifices are less 
formidable, but they are still of a number and 
character to forbid any but men and women of 
a heroic faith in Christ to face them. To 



Prefatory Note. 5 

exchange life in a Christian land, like ours, for 
one to be spent in exhausting climates, amid the 
corruptions of heathen and papal communities, 
for no other end than to instruct and save them, 
though less impressive than the trials herein 
recorded, is itself an act of exalted heroism, and 
those who are doing it deserve to be ranked 
among the noblest workers in the Church of the 
living God. 

These etchings are chiefly of the missionary 
heroes and heroines of our English and Amer- 
ican Methodism. And this, not because other 
Churches have produced no such characters ; for, 
in fact, their missionary records are as rich in 
noble deeds as our own ; but because it is proper 
that Methodist youth should first be made 
familiar with the heroic souls of their own 
Church. Of some of the pioneers of sister 
Churches who were in the modern foreign 
missionary field before us, the first chapter 
treats. Let us honor their memories as we do 



6 Prefatory Note. 

those of our own Church. And let us read and 

think of what our own brethren have done and 

suffered for the cause in missionary fields until 

our hearts reciprocate their zeal and move us to 

sustain our missions with gifts sufficient to keep 

them growing until, like the stone cut out of the 

mountain without hands, they cover the whole 

earth. 

Daniel Wise. 

Englewood, N. J., 1884. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

SOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY PIONEERS. 

The Pilgrim Fathers — Other noble souls — Wesley's Mission? 
ary Society — William Carey, the shoe-maker — His heroic offer 
— Opposition — Wins the Baptists to missionary work — Call tc 
Bengal — His reluctant wife — His success — A consecrated boy — 
Three Sophomores under a hay-stack — A missionary band — 
Birthday of the American Board — Five American Missionaries 
sent to India — American Baptists and Burmah — What a mag- 
azine article brought to pass — London Missionary Society — The 
work of nearly a hundred years Page 13 

CHAPTER II. 

LIVES GIVEN TO THE LIBERIAN MISSION. 

Who are true heroes — A young invalid at a Conference — 
His desire — A bishop's question — Melville B. Cox — A grave in 
Africa anticipated — A grand response — On board the Jupiter — 
In Monrovia — From Monrovia to heaven — Five more volunteer 
missionaries — Fever victims — Returning missionaries — A noble- 
souled lady — Heroism of John Seys and wife — His first night in 
the death chamber of Cox — His work in Liberia — Ann Wil- 
kins's work — Blissful death 31 



8 Contents. 

chapter III. 

A plowman's heroic zeal. 
Elisha at the plow — George Piercy hears the call of God — 
Consulting a friend — Good advice — Waiting — The call repeated 
— The courage of faith — A depressing voyage — Alone in China 
— Disheartening information — A Christian soldier — Finding a 
friend — Doing one's best — Help from home — Among the hea- 
thens — Force of example — Accepted by his Church as a mission- 
ary — The father of the Wesley an Missions in China. .Page 32 

CHAPTER IV. 

ON THE BANKS OF THE GAMBIA RIVER. 

A tale of death — Its effect on some missionary candidates — 
William Moister and his bride — On the Gambia — A delightful 
reception — A good omen — Fruit — A sail up the Gambia — Tor- 
nado — The cry for rum — Mrs. Moister's visitors — Sick with 
fever — War near the mission — On M'Carthy's Island — At King 
Bruma's palace — Return to England 68 

CHAPTER V. 

INDIAN VOICES. 

Effect of a few words — Seeking for God's Book — A long 
journey — Its story printed — The call from Wilbur Fisk — 
Cheerful responses — The land aflame with zeal — In search of 
the Flathead s — March of our missionaries to Oregon — Teaching 
the Indians — Preaching to white pioneers — Jason Lee's return 
for re-enforcements — Great results of the mission 84 

CHAPTER VI. 

HEROIC WORK AMONG NEW ZEALAND SAVAGES. 

Waiting for a mission field — A call to New Zealand — The 
missionary's bride — Arrival at Wangaroa — Building a mission 



Contents. 9 

house — The chief, George— A daring deed — Encouragements — 
The robber chief — The courage of faith — Progress — Narrow es- 
cape from death — A captured whale- ship — Persecutions — Flight 
and return — Tribal wars — Driven from the mission — Fleeing 
from death — A wife's heroism — Resting at Sydney — Among the 
Tonguese savages — Sublime madnesss — Success in Tonga — In 
New Zealand again — Wise counsels — Impaired health — Tri- 
umphant death — New Zealand a Christian country. . .Page 99 

CHAPTER VII. 

A SHORT BUT BEAUTIFUL LIFE. 

A flood of feeling — The young man eloquent — A noble sister 
— Mr. Bumby in New Zealand — A touching prayer — A terrible 
chief's conversion — A chiefs shrewd reply — Hardships — A noto- 
rious man-eater — Making peace between angry cannibal tribes 
— Wonderful success — A dying missionary's last words — Mr. 
Bumby's tragic death — His mantle falls on his noble sister — A 
missionary's dying exclamation 117 

CHAPTER VIII. 

CONQUEST OF BEAUTIFUL TONGA. 

Friendly Islands — Bad qualities of their people — Four mis- 
sionaries killed or driven oif — A missionary's widow — Walter 
Lawry's sunny reception — Driven away — New missionaries in 
Tonga — Robbed and threatened — Discouragements — Re-enforce- 
ments — A beam of light — Unexpected perils — A friend — A bold 
reply — A chief's conversion — Showers of blessing — Hanging 
idols — Eight thousand converts — Christian Tonga 133 

CHAPTER IX. 

A LOVELY AND HEROIC LADY. 

A bridal party — A severe struggle — Arrival at Tonga — Kind 
greetings — Glorious things — A call to Fiji — A horrible feast — 



10 Contents. 

Mrs. Cargill's meek reply — Affectionate farewells — A warlike 
reception — The cannibal king — An unexpected welcome — First 
night in Fiji — First converts — A hurricane — Priestly opposition 
— A shrewd reply — Kich harvests of souls — Mrs. Cargill's 
beautiful death Page 147 

CHAPTER X. 
going to " ceylon's isle." 

Dr. Coke's grand confession — An undying spark — A noble 
pledge — Last night in England — At sea— Sickness and death on 
shipboard — Doctor Coke found dead in his cabin — A stunning 
blow — Embarrassed missionaries in Bombay — A generous sailor 
— Friends appear — From Bombay to Ceylon — Cordial welcomes — 
A ripe field — A Buddhist priest's conversion — The convert's 
dream — Death of Mr. Ault — The Ava priest becomes a Christian 
— Rich fruits in Ceylon 161 

CHAPTER XL 

THE GRAVE-YAKD OP MISSIONARIES. 

Freed men in Sierra Leone — Their cry for a missionary — 
The noble volunteer — Reception by the people — Success — 
Striken to death — Another call — Other responses — Success of 
Mr. and Mrs. Davies — Mrs. Davies dies — A cry of joy — Burning 
Greegrees — -Calling for help — Fresh reapers sent out — Another 
missionary's wife dies — Success in winning souls — Driven away 
by fever — Two more heroes — Still another missionary dies — 
More sickness — New helpers — Off to the Gambia — Hardships — 
First convert — Fifty-four missionary volunteers die in forty 
years — Roland Peck's grand self-devotion — The grave-yard of 
missionaries 175 



Contents. 11 

CHAPTER XII. 

IN THE LAND OF THE NAMAQUAS. 

Barnabas Shaw's desire — Sails for the Cape of Good Hope — 
A discourteous governor — Preaching to soldiers — A missionary 
visitor— Starting for Namaqua land — A queer traveling ma- 
chine — Over rough roads — A chief seeking a teacher — Lily 
Fountain Mission — Teaching and preaching — Privations — First- 
fruits — Converts — Helpers from England — Escape from a ven- 
emous puff-adder — A missionary murdered — Home to rest — 
Return to Africa — Peaceful death Page 189 

CHAPTER XIII. 

PERILS AND TRIALS OF MISSIONARY LIFE. 

Ship on fire — Drifting in an open boat — Friendly mission- 
aries — Books and clothing lost — Another hard voyage — Study- 
ing the language — An Indian congregation — Travel in a palan- 
keen — Fording a river — Escape from a serpent — Horrible sights 
— Scenes of misery — Joy at success — The puff-adder at a mis- 
sionary's feet — A missionary's ride 203 

CHAPTER XIV. 

TWO MISSIONARY PIONEERS. 

A call for a missionary to India — Dr. Butler's response — A sore 
trial — Selecting a field — Discouraging counsel — Finding a native 
helper — Beginning work — A war cloud — A perilous flight — In 
a jungle — Revolt of the bearers — Answer to prayer — A place of 
refuge— Joel's flight — Another perilous journey — Return to 
Bareilly — Helpers from America — The mission founded — Its 
great success — The Pioneer of the South Indian Conference — 
What led William Taylor to India — His work in Bombay — Or- 
ganizing a self-supporting Church — Great results — Dr. Taylor's 
monument. Dr. Taylor made bishop for Africa 221 



12 Contents. 

CHAPTER XV. 

SOKE HEROIC LABI MISSIONARIES. 

Heathen women in India and China- Society of Methodist 
ladies in America — Their first funds — Their first missionary — 
Miss Thoburn's success — Their first medical missionary — "Miss 
Fannie J, Sparkes in Hareilly — Nellie — Her consecration to 
mission work — Her early death — A motherless infant girl dedi- 
cated to mission work — Carrie L. M'Millan fulfills her father's 
▼OW — Her work for India's daughters— Miss Susan B. Higgins 
in Japan Page 236 

CHAPTEB XVI. 

MISSION AKY SCENES AND INCIDENTS, 

A scene in Modena, Italy — A scene in Rome — The fall of 
Montezuma — Romanism in Mexico — Methodism in Mexico- 
Romanism a persecutor — A scene in Danville, Ohio — William 
Nast and German Methodism. Incidents of mission work 
in India 2;>4 



# Uustr att erns. 



Xynee Tal Frontispiece 

Monrovia SO 

Oregon Institute 97 

Saint Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church, Rome 255 

The Hindus and their Teacher 275 



OUR MISSIONARY HEROES AND 
HEROINES. 



CHAPTER L 

SOME MISSIONARY SOCIETY PIONEERS. 

" .... He alone, who hath 

The Bible need not stray, 

Yet he who hath, and will not give 

That heavenly guide to all that live, 

Himself shall lose the way." — Montgomery. 

¥HEKE is the boy, where the girl, who does 
not love to read and re-read the story of 
those gallant men and brave women who crossed 
the rough Atlantic Ocean in that frail little 
vessel named the " Mayflower ? " Where is the 
young heart that has not swelled with admira- 
tion when thinking of those noble Pilgrim 
Fathers and mothers who forsook their homes in 
England and Holland and came to this then 



14 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

wild land, peopled with savages, not for the sake 
of gain, but that they might find that freedom 
to worship God which they were denied in the 
land of their birth ? Those Pilgrim Fathers were, 
indeed, worthy of your admiration, and they will 
forever rank in history among the noblest of 
human kind. 

In these sketches of " Missionary Heroes and 
Heroines " I propose to tell you of other men 
and women as heroic and noble as our Pilgrim 
Fathers ; of souls whose adventures were as 
thrilling as theirs, and whose motives were still 
loftier. For grand as was the object sought by 
the Pilgrims, it was not wholly unmixed with 
the hope of gaining lands and building homes 
that might more than replace those they had 
forsaken. But our early missionary heroes could 
indulge no such expectation. As they embarked 
on the vessels which bore them to the shores of 
savage and pagan nations, and looked forward to 
the field of their labors, they could truthfully 
say, as Wesley did in 1737, that Ci the difficulties 
we must encounter God only knows ; probably 



Some Missionary Society Pioneers. 15 

martyrdom will conclude them." Nevertheless, 
their hearts did not feel the chill of cowardice, 
neither did their cheeks turn pale. On the con- 
trary, their eyes brightened, their hearts swelled 
with holy love, and they thought, if they did not 
say, as did an American missionary, " We would 
rather be missionaries in yonder dark lands, 
pointing ignorant heathens to Christ, than to 
enjoy the pleasures of a civilized and Christian 
country." 

Before telling you of some of these brave 
souls, whose missionary toils reflect honor on 
our race and also on our beloved Methodism, I 
will give you one or two illustrations of the way 
in which the modern missionary work began in 
other denominations. As to our Wesley, he 
took up a missionary collection, at Newcastle, as 
early as 1767, about the time that the rigging- 
loft was opened for Methodist preaching in New 
York city ; in 1778 he talked of sending mis- 
sionaries to Africa, and in 1784 he organized a 
Methodist Missionary Society. But his preach- 
ers were so overloaded with home work and 



16 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

with calls from America that it was scarcely 
possible to spare men for heathen fields. Nev- 
ertheless, the great Wesleyan revival so roused 
the spiritual slumber of other Churches, that 
about the close of the century they began 
foreign missionary work. I will now tell you 
how the English Baptists were led to start their 
missions. 

About one hundred years ago a young man, 
named William Carey, was admitted to mem- 
bership in a Baptist Church in England. This 
young man was a poor shoe-maker, born of 
obscure parents, reared in poverty, with very 
little opportunity to go to school. Perhaps no 
one, seeing him pulling wax-ends on a cob- 
bler's bench, ever imagined that beneath his 
coarse vest a great heroic heart was beating. 
Yet it was even so, for while his hands were 
busy pounding leather on a lap-stone his active 
mind was thinking of the facts he learned in his 
few leisure hours. He thirsted for knowledge. 
He read history, he studied geography, he 
learned to draw maps, he acquired several Ian- 



Some Missionary Society Pioneers. 17 

guages, and, after a time, was able, by this self- 
teaching, to ascend from the cobbler's bench to 
the desk of a school-teacher. "When twenty-two 
years old he sat at the feet of the Great Teacher, 
and learned that wisdom which is higher than 
all the lore of human books. With his wisdom 
the Saviour gave him the richer pearl of love, 
and than he began to think of the people who 
lived in the lands of which he had read so much. 
These thoughts burned themselves deep into his 
soul, and soon after, in a monthly prayer-meet- 
ing, just then established at Nottingham to 
pray for the extension of Christ's kingdom, he 
began telling the people that missionaries might 
and ought to be sent to heathen nations; and 
then he would bravely add, " I myself am will- 
ing to go." 

It seems strange, but it is true, that this 
heroic offer, instead of kindling missionary fire 
in the hearts of his Baptist brethren, offended 
them. The modern missionary spirit had not 
then quickened the Churches, and, therefore, his 

burning words, often repeated, led some to say, 
2 



18 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

" Carey is infatuated ! " Others remarked, 
" Carey's schemes are wild ! " Still others said, 
" Such a project is hopeless ; " but here and 
there was one who pondered on his words, 
as did Mary of old on the things that related to 
her divine Child. 

One day in a meeting of ministers Mr. Carey 
wished them to discuss a resolution, that it is 
" the duty of Christians to attempt the spread 
of the Gospel among heathen nations," when, 
strange to tell, he was reproached by a venerable 
member as an enthusiast for entertaining such a 
notion. 

Heroic souls are undaunted, and Carey, being 
a genuine moral hero, would not be put down. 
He wrote on the question, talked about it, and 
brooded over it until his desire to promote 
missionary work grew into a mighty master- 
passion. At last his missionary zeal begot a 
kindred fire in some other souls; and eight 
years from the time of his first public utterance, 
while preaching a powerful sermon, he con- 
quered the prejudice of his brethren, and they 



Some Missionary Society Pioneers. 19 

resolved to form a missionary society. As if to 
prove his own sincerity, he at once offered to go 
to the South Sea Islands if the means were pro- 
vided to support him one year. The people in 
those islands were savages at that time. Yet 
he stood ready to take his life in his hand that 
he might tell them the sweet story of his Lord's 
love. O noble, Christ-like man ! 

But an opening occurred just then for a mis- 
sion to Bengal, India. " Will you go to 
Bengal?" asked his brethren. "I will," he 
replied most cordially. As a discussion about 
sending him to this latter place was going on, a 
gentleman named Thomas, who had been in 
Bengal, came into the room. Carey rose to 
greet him, and both were so overcome with 
feeling that they fell on each other's necks and 
wept ! After hearing Mr. Thomas speak, a Mr. 
Fuller said : 

" From Mr. Thomas's account there is a gold 
mine in India, but it seems almost as deep as 
the center of the earth. Who will venture to 
explore it ? " 



20 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

Then the devoted Carey replied, " I will go 
down, but remember that you must hold the 
ropes." 

" We will, we will ! " responded his brethren 
with enthusiastic solemnity. Carey's persever- 
ance* had won the battle, and henceforth the 
English Baptist Missionary Society became a 
power in the heathen world. 

Good women are generally willing to work 
for Jesus anywhere, but Mr. Carey's w T ife was 
not willing to go with him to India. Indeed, 
she declared she would not go. This was a 
critical test of Carey's loyalty to Christ. But, 
much as he loved his wife, he loved Christ 
more, and therefore resolved to go to Bengal 
wdthout her. Again and again he besought her 
to change her purpose, apparently in vain. , 
Finally, after bidding her adieu, and then miss- 
ing the vessel in which he was to sail, he resumed 
his plea, and, like a true wife, she relented, and 
sailed with him to his chosen field. 

Dr. Carey's personal labors, after many suffer- 
ings, achieved much among the pagans, but 



Some Missionary Society Pioneers. 21 

when he receives his heavenly crown it will 
surely be adorned with many stars because of 
the glorious spiritual victories won by that Bap- 
tist Missionary Society which his entreaties, 
undying zeal, and prayers called into being. 

Let us now look at the young American who 
had Carey's spirit, and was the means of start- 
ing the American Board of Missions on its 
grand career. 

Boys and girls are often said to be like 
vessels which have large ears, because they 
are apt to listen to what grown people say when 
they are talking about their private affairs. 
Sometimes they make an ill-use of what they 
hear. Generally they soon forget what they 
hear. Now and then words remain in their 
memories, sink into their deepest thoughts, and 
give direction to their lives. I will give you an 
example of this last-named effect of a few 
words spoken by a mother in the presence of 
her little son. 

This lady, whose name was Mills, was speak- 
ing of her son Samuel to a friend one day, 



22 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

when she said, probably with deep and solemn 
feeling, "I have consecrated this child to the 
service of God as a missionary '." 

Little Samuel heard these words. It is doubt- 
ful if he understood just what they meant, since 
missionaries were not much talked about in those 
days. But he knew they meant something 
about his own future life, and that led him to 
think of them and hide them in his memory. 

While he was yet a young man he very wisely 
enlisted under the banner of Jesus. No sooner 
had he opened his heart to receive a drop of 
the Saviour's love than those words of his 
mother grew into a great and grand desire. 
Then his heart cried, " O that I may become a 
missionary to the heathen in foreign lands ! " 

Good desires, like choice plants, need to be 
kept moist by dew-drops and showers from 
heaven. Samuel knew this, and all the time he 
was preparing for college he kept his desire 
alive by praying for that grace which is a living 
fountain in the soul. When he entered 
Williams College, in 1806, he did not suffer 



Some Missionary Society Pioneers. 23 

thoughtless freshmen to kill his noble desire. 
One day, about the time of his entrance into the 
sophomore class, he said to two of his class- 
mates, u Let us take a walk." 

Then he led them into a quiet spot, apart from 
the haunts of college roysterers, and there, while 
they sat in the shadow of a hay-stack, he told 
his companions about his heroic desire. It was 
a pleasant surprise to him to be told that they, 
too, were cherishing the same sublime w T ish. 
They were a happy trio on that memorable day, 
a portion of which they spent in prayer and in 
conversation about their chosen plan of life. 

This trio, like true knights of the cross, drew 
other young men into a missionary band re- 
solved to consecrate their lives, not to the pursuit 
of honor or places of ease or riches, but to 
preaching the Gospel of love and life to miser- 
able heathen souls — a work that is the noblest of 
all the works of men. From college these young 
men went to the Andover Theological Seminary. 
Others soon caught the heavenly flame, among 
whom were tw T o, named Judson and Newell. 



24 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

The resolution of these noble young men to be- 
come missionaries was made known, after a time, 
to the faculty of the institution. These gentle- 
men approved, and consulted with some distin- 
guished clergymen, tw T o of whom, while riding in 
a carriage, proposed to form a missionary society. 
A day or two afterward four of the consecrated 
band sent a paper to the Congregational Associa- 
tion, on which were these grand words, worthy 
to be written in letters of gold : 

" Our minds have long been impressed with 
the duty and importance of personally attempt- 
ing a mission to the heathen." 

The next day the Congregational Association 
instituted that remarkably successful mission- 
ary society, popularly known as The American 
Board, or, as it is more properly called, The 
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. 
Some eighteen months later this Board sent out 
five missionaries to the East Indies. Their 
names were Judson, Nott, Hall, Newell, and 
Bice — men worthy of honorable remembrance. 
And thus you see that a few words, dropped 



Some Missionary Society Pioneers. 25 

from a loving mother's lips and nourished in 
the heart of a thoughtful boy, grew into a 
powerful organization, which has planted its 
missions in many lands, and led tens of thousands 
of guilty, miserable souls into the possession of 
that peace, joy, hope, and eternal life which are 
the rich fruitage of faith in the Lamb of God 
who taketh away the sins of the world. 

There are rivers which, after flowing short 
distances from their mountain springs, meet 
with obstructions that cause their waters to 
divide into separate streams. And so it hap- 
pened in the case of this pioneer missionary 
society. Among its first five missionaries were 
two, Messrs. Judson and Rice, who, while on 
their voyage out, thought they saw reasons for 
adopting the peculiar views of the Baptists. 
This unlooked-for incident looked at first like a 
misfortune, but the God of missions so over- 
ruled it that it turned out for the furtherance of 
this infant cause. For after these two young 
men reached India they wrote to their Baptist 
friends in America, telling them of their 



26 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

changed opinions on the question of baptism. 
As their story spread among Baptist churches, 
the spirit of missions was awakened among 
them, and they speedily organized a Baptist 
Missionary Society. Supported by this body, 
Messrs. Judson and Rice founded missions in 
Burmah. The work in that country was bit- 
terly, cruelly opposed by the Burmese. But the 
heroic courage of Judson and his fellow- workers 
conquered at last, and a most wonderful work 
was wrought there, especially among the simple- 
minded Karens, a people subject to the king of 
Burmah. From that time onward the Amer- 
ican Baptists entered heartily into missionary 
work, sending hundreds of missionaries into 
the field, and changing thousands of unhappy 
pagans into happy disciples of the Lord Jesus. 
And their work must, in part at least, be credited 
to those few seed-words dropped by Mrs. Mills 
into the heart of her consecrated boy. 

Not far from the time when Carey breathed 
missionary fire into the souls of his brethren 
some one wrote an article on missions for the 



Some Missionary Society Pioneers. 27 

"London Evangelical Magazine." That article 
fell like a living spark on many leading men of 
the English Dissenting Churches, and led to the 
formation of the London Missionary Society, 
which soon took a foremost position in the van 
of the Christian missionary army which God 
was calling to rise and take possession of the 
heathen as the promised inheritance of his ever- 
living Son. Other Churches, both in England 
and America, soon joined this modern crusade 
for the spiritual conquest of the nations. Not 
a hundred years have yet passed since this holy 
war began in good earnest, yet to-day there are 
in the great missionary field, as nearly as can be 
ascertained, not less than five thousand mission- 
aries, more than twenty-five thousand native 
preachers, and more than fifteen hundred lady 
missionaries ! What has this army of the Lord 
accomplished ? God alone can fully answer this 
question. But human records show that tens of 
thousands of heathen souls have no doubt been 
saved and gone to heaven; probably not less 
than half a million are now living and serving 



28 Missionary Heeoes and Heeoines. 

the Christ, and a million more are being taught 
the way of life. Of heathen children also there 
are nearly half a million under Sunday-school 
instruction. Are not these glorious, abundant, 
wonderful results in so short a time, and from 
such feeble beginnings ? Behold, O ye youth 
of Methodism, what God hath wrought ! 







iiiii'M'iiniijIii,!; mHHHI: 



llll ■' 



mm!-. 



Lives Given to the Liberian Mission. 31 



CHAPTER II. 
lives given to the liberian mission. 

" He, from duty never altering 

Who, with faith's heroic ken, 
Forward treads with step unfaltering, 

Is the man of men." — D. M. Mom. 

MOST young people love to read about heroic 
men and women. The soldier who seeks 
" the bubble reputation at the cannon's mouth," 
the sailor who prefers sinking with his battered 
ship to hauling down his country's flag, and the 
traveler who braves the icebergs of the north or 
the burning heat of tropical deserts that he may 
add somewhat to men's knowledge of this great 
round world, charm their imaginations, and 
make their hearts swell with admiration. This 
feeling is proper, and, if fitly guarded, healthy. 
A youth whose heart leaps before the image of 
a brave man risking his life in a mighty effort 
to overcome a great visible danger, is more 



32 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

likely to act the hero himself when the occasion 
comes than one whose soul is dead to all sense 
of heroic feeling. 

But there is a wide difference between heroes. 
Some wicked men are heroes. Like that famous 
admiral, Lord Nelson, they have natures that 
never know what it is to be afraid. A bad or 
mean motive suffices to lead such men to acts 
of wonderful daring. But their heroic deeds, 
lacking a good and lofty motive, cannot be 
called noble. They only are noble-minded 
heroes who choose to risk health, property, 
prospects, and life as acts of love to the divine 
Jesus, done for the good of other men. These 
are moral heroes, and of more such morally 
heroic souls I will now proceed to tell you. 

Imagine a young man, pale and sad, moving 
with feeble steps down the aisle of a Methodist 
Episcopal Church in Norfolk, Virginia. An 
Annual Conference is in session there, with 
Bishop Hedding, now of precious memory, in 
the chair. The young man quietly seats himself 
among his brethren, exciting no higher feeling 



Lives Given to the Liberiaist Mission. 33 

than pity. They know that he had been called 
to follow the remains of a beloved wife to an 
early grave, that his health is so much broken 
that he has been forced to quit his charge and 
travel as an invalid in the farther South. But 
they see not that the flame which lights his eyes 
is a radiation from the missionary fire which is 
burning with an unquenchable blaze within his 
throbbing breast. Yet it is even so. 

At a proper hour this delicate invalid sought 
an interview with the venerable Bishop Hed- 
ding, to whom he opened his heart freely, and 
said : " I desire very much to be sent as a mis- 
sionary to South America." 

" Why not go to Liberia ? " asked the Bishop, 
who had been vainly trying for some time past 
to find a man willing to go to Africa. 

Liberia! That was a land of fatal fevers and 
probable early death. It was an infant colony, 
formed of f reedmen sent out by the Colonization 
Society, that they might grow into a community 
which, perchance, might become a light to the 
benighted tribes of interior Africa. The Bap 



34 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

tists had already sent out one white missionary, 
named Calvin Horton, who had already fallen a 
martyr to the deadly coast fever. Was the mis- 
sionary fire in this invalid's breast sufficiently 
strong to incline him to say "Yes" to the 
Bishop's question? 

It was. This youth, whose name was Mel- 
ville Beveridge Cox, had the soul of a moral 
hero, and therefore, after a thoughtful pause, 
he finally replied : 

" If the Lord will, I think I will go." 
Of course this grandly heroic youth knew 
that by this answer he was in all probability 
signing his own death-warrant. Had he been 
less consecrated to his Master than he was, re- 
flection on the perils of his proposed mission 
would have cooled his ardor, and possibly have 
moved him to change his purpose. But, like 
all truly noble souls, he thought not of himself, 
but of the work he might accomplish for the 
poor freedmen who were struggling with the 
difficulties of settlement in a new home in a 
sickly climate. Hence, after a short time given 



Lives Given to the Liberian Mission. 35 

to reflection, lie said of himself, "Liberia is 
swallowing up all my thoughts." 

As soon as suitable arrangements were made 
for his support by our Missionary Society he 
was duly appointed to the Liberia Mission. 
Thus the die was cast. Did he shrink now that 
he stood face to face with his perilous work ? 
Not he. On the contrary, he was exultant as 
one who enters upon a rich inheritance. See 
him with radiant face sitting, writing to a 
friend, and saying, 

" I thirst to be on my way. I pray that God 
may go with me there. I have no lingering 
fear. A grave in Africa shall be sweet to me if 
he sustain me." 

This beautiful passage from one of his letters 
shows that he expected to lay down his life for 
the good of Africa. Perhaps the shadow of the 
Destroyer was already falling upon him. Per- 
haps he looked upon himself as a needed sacrifice 
to be laid on the missionary altar for the good, 
not of Liberia only, but also of the countless 
hosts of degraded beings which occupy that 

3 



36 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

Dark Continent men call Africa. What but 
this truly sublime thought led him to say to a 
friend about that time : 

" I know I cannot live long in Africa, but I 
hope to live long enough to get there ; and if it 
please God that my bones shall lie in an African 
grave, I shall have established such a bond 
between Africa and the Church at home as sliaH 
not be broken until Africa be redeemed." 

In the same self-sacrificing spirit, when visit- 
ing Wesleyan University, at Middletown, Con- 
necticut, he said to one of the students : 

" If I die in Africa, you must come over and 
write my epitaph." 

U I will," the young man replied; "but what 
shall I write ? " 

" Write, Let a thousand fall before Africa 
be given up ? " was his grand response. Never 
were nobler words spoken by mortal man since 
Paul stood with the cruel sword of Nero flashing 
upon him, " ready to be offered " as one of 
his Lord's martyrs. 

The first practical test of his high purpose 



Lives Given to the Liberian Mission. 37 

was reached when the day of his embarkation 
arrived. He had expected to have a companion 
to share his perils and labors, but her courage 
failed her, and he had to start alone. Then lie 
had to bid adieu to the graves of his sainted 
wife and child, to his personal friends, to the 
Church, and to his native land. The trial was 
indeed a sore one, especially in view of his pre- 
monition of impending death. But, like a gen- 
uine hero, he never faltered. "I feel a little 
sadness," he said, very frankly. Sadness under 
such circumstances was human, but his unshrink- 
ing faith and his hope of w T hat the gift of his 
life might accomplish for Africa were divine — 
the work of that indwelling Comforter whose 
presence was the inspiration of his sublime 
heroism. 

He commenced his memorable voyage on 
board the " Jupiter," November 6, 1832. Sea- 
sickness prostrated him. Unusually severe 
storms rudely tossed the uncomfortable vessel, 
and head- winds prolonged his passage ; but none 
of these things unbraced his firm spirit, or 



38 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

diverted his thoughts from his chosen field. 
Amid the violence of the wind-swept ocean he 
wrote, u Liberia seems sweeter to me than ever." 
When in mid-ocean his mind was busy planning 
mission-house, school, church, and farm. Hope's 
bright dreams showed him young converts, 
churches, circuits, stations, and conferences in 
Liberia. As his bark neared the land of his 
anticipations, his longings, like those of Xeno- 
phon's ancient Greeks when nearing the sea, 
grew into impatience. He strained his eyes to 
catch a glimpse of its shore. And when it 
became dimly visible from the deck of the 
" Jupiter," his enthusiastic words were, 

" I have seen Liberia, and live ! It rises up 
as yet like a cloud of heaven ! " 

He landed at Monrovia on the 7th of March, 
1833. With a zeal like that of Peter, and with 
Paul's unresting energy, he entered at once on 
his work. He preached, purchased a mission- 
house, brought the people into harmony with 
his plans, improved the Sunday-schools, held a 
camp-meeting, visited the colonists at their 



Lives Given to the Liberia^ Mission. 39 

homes, marked out suitable places for mission- 
ary occupation, secured a church lot, and so 
filled his mind with conceptions of the needs 
of poor Africa, that his heart yearned with 
inexpressible desire to see the saving truths of 
the Gospel taught to her millions of degraded 
children. Less than four months of thi§ enthu- 
siastic work and holy emotion passed before the 
deadly coast fever laid its burning hand upon 
him. But when it touched him it was with the 
finger of death. On the 21st of July he awoke 
from a torpid slumber, cried, " Come, come, 
come, Lord Jesus, come quickly ! " and then 
ascended to Paradise. O, happy hero of the 
Cross ! He fell, as he expected, a sacrifice upon 
the altar of Africa's redemption. He had his 
reward in heaven, but his heroic soul still lives 
on earth, giving inspiration to the missionary 
spirit of our Church, which is girdling the world 
wdth missionary Churches. 

But before Cox had passed into the celestial 
life his example, unknown to him, had moved 
five others of like spirit with himself to risk 



40 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

their lives for the good of Africa. Their names 
were Rev. Rufus Spaulding, Rev. Samuel O. 
Wright, their wives, and Miss Sophronia Far- 
rington. Their self-devotion was put to a severe 
test before leaving home by the sad news of the 
death of their heroic leader. But their courage, 
being born of heavenly love, kept them un- 
daunted, and they cheerfully sailed in the " Ju- 
piter" in November, 1833. On their arrival 
they organized the " Liberia Annual Confer- 
ence." Their hopes of usefulness were growing 
bright, when, alas ! after only one brief month, 
the fatal fever that had slain Cox swept Mrs. 
Wright into an untimely but glorious grave. 
Some six weeks later the same cruel disease set 
the soul of Mr. Wright free from its house of 
clay, and sent it to occupy u a house not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens." 

Mr. Spaulding, also finding himself disabled 

by fever, concluded to return to America. Miss 

.Farrington, being unlikely to recover from the 

same disease, he proposed to take with him. 

At first, her case seeming to be hopeless, she 



Lives Given to the Liberian Mission. 41 

consented. But when a renewed attack came 
on, and the doctor, after pronouncing her death 
certain and near, had left her with only a native 
girl asleep in her room, she, in her heart-agony 
and loneliness, exclaimed, " Is there not some 
one to sympathize with me ? " For a moment 
she was in the depths. But her precious Lord, 
who had himself known the grief of being left 
to suffer alone, came to her help. He revealed 
himseJf to her heart, caused her to believe that 
she ought to remain in Africa, and moved her to 
pray, saying, " Then, Lord, remove this disease." 
Instantly her fever left her. The prayer of 
faith had triumphed, her courage revived, her 
body was healed. 

Presently her doctor came back expecting to 
find her dying or dead. Seeing her alive and 
well, he gazed on her with astonishment, and 
said : 

" Well, yours is the greatest cure I have ever 
accomplished." 

Miss Farrington knew that it was not he, but 
the Great Physician, who had healed her body ; 



42 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

but she said nothing, not wishing, perhaps, to 
deprive him of the satisfaction he felt over her 
case. 

Mr. Spaulding soon called to talk of prepara- 
tions for their return to America. Since their 
arrival eight missionaries of different denomina^ 
tions had died. Spaulding was, therefore, led to 
believe that Africa could not be saved by w^hite 
missionaries. But this noble lady said : 

" No ; I can never see this mission abandoned. 
I can die here, but I w T ill never return until this 
mission is established." 

Spaulding's gentle nature was touched. He 
could not endure the thought of leaving this 
heroic woman to fill another missionary grave, 
as he no doubt believed she w^ould. Hence he 
replied : 

" But the Board will probably cut you off if 
you do not return with me." 

"I will stay and trust the Lord," was her 
truly grand rejoinder. 

Mr. Spaulding and his wife returned home to 
recover as best they might from the enfeebling 



Lives Give^ to the Libekian Mission. 43 

fever which forbade their longer stay. But the 
brave Sophronia remained alone, the only white 
person on the coast of Liberia. The same 
divine fire that had burned in the heart of Cox 
was giving warmth and zeal and heroism to her 
finely touched spirit. Never did woman of 
ancient or modern fame give expression to a 
loftier sentiment than did this accomplished 
lady when she said : 

" I am ready to offer my soul upon the altar 
of my God for the salvation of Africa ! " 

This was no idle speech, no vain boast, uttered 
in a moment of excitement, but the genuine 
expression of a spirit consecrated wholly to the 
Master's most severe and perilous work. 

A few months after Mr. Spaulding's return, 
another missionary, destined to win immortality 
in missionary history through his great work in 
Liberia, landed in Monrovia. His name was 
John Seys. The only white person he found 
to greet him on his arrival was this persistent 
heroine — the sole representative of the first band 
sent out by our Missionary Board. Emaciated, 



44 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

pale, and feeble in person, yet strong of heart, 
firm in faith, and cheerful in feeling, Miss Far- 
rington bade him welcome to that land of death. 
How he felt one may partly judge from these 
words of Mr. Seys : 

" Never will I forget my first emotions as I 
first took the hand of, and was welcomed to 
Africa by, the only representative of the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Mission in that country, and 
that representative a delicate, frail, emaciated 
woman." 

Miss Farrington kept her resolution to remain 
in Liberia until the mission was established. 
The judicious labors of Mr. Seys soon accom- 
plished this result. And then this elect lady 
returned to her native land. She subsequently 
became the wife of Mr. George Cone, of Utica, 
New York, happy, doubtless, in her conscious- 
ness that she did what she could for the Lord in 
Africa, and honored by all who know how to 
appreciate Christian heroism in a noble woman. 

We can afford space for brief sketches of only 
two more of the heroic souls who placed their 



Lives Given to the Liberia^ Mission. 45 

lives on the missionary altar in our Liberian 
Mission. John Seys, mentioned above, was a 
native of Santa Cruz, in the West Indies. He 
had spent most of his life in those islands. He 
owed his conversion to the labors of Wesleyan 
missionaries from England, and was laboring as 
a missionary to the Oneida Indians in New York. 
Bishop Hedding wrote asking him, "Will you 
go to Liberia ? Your birth and early life in a 
climate so nearly like that of the African coast 
may have fitted you to resist the fever which 
has proved so fatal to our lamented Cox." 
Seys read this letter to his wife. Did she bid 
him refuse the Bishop's offer ? Nay. Did she 
refuse to go with him ? No, no. The love of 
Christ in her heart had given her so much of 
her Lord's self-sacrificing spirit that she replied : 

" I am willing to accompany my husband 
wherever God and the Church see fit to send 
him." 

These words, so beautifully expressive of con- 
jugal tenderness and womanly heroism, are 
worthy to be written in letters of gold. They 



46 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

were decisive in her husband's case. He con- 
sented to go to Africa, and the notes of prepara- 
tion for the perilous enterprise were heard 
immediately in their little household, and in 
our Mission Rooms at New York. Just then 
Mr. Spaulding arrived, bearing the sad tidings 
of the deadly ravages of the African fever re- 
corded above. His words shocked the Church. 
The missionary authorities very naturally asked : 

" Ought we to send another family into the 
jaws of death ? " 

Bishop Hedding wrote to Seys, saying, " I 
will release you from your appointment if, in 
view of the recent loss of life in the mission, 
you so desire." 

What an opportunity to escape a deathly 
peril ! Had the noble -hearted Seys had a par- 
ticle of moral cowardice in his heart, he would 
have seized it with avidity. But he was through- 
out a man of heroic mold, and, with justifiable 
scorn, he refused to give up a work to which he 
now felt that God had called him. 

Hence he sailed in September, 1834, but had 



Lives Given to the Liberian Mission. 47 

to do so without wife or children. Sickness 
compelled that heroic lady to remain behind. 
This added heart agony to the peril of death. 
But Seys, braced by faith and hope, accepted 
this unlooked-for test of his missionary devotion, 
and crossed the stormy Atlantic with only a 
young colored preacher, named Francis Burns, 
for his companion. On reaching the port of 
Monrovia the first news that greeted him was 
of more death. Two more Presbyterian mis- 
sionaries had fallen, a third was sick, and the 
governor of the colony was in a like condition. 
What did Mr. Seys say to these discouraging 
facts ? Mark his manly words : 

" This was sad news," he wrote ; " but this 
was no time for our courage to fail us." 

Surely not ; yet nothing less than the highest 
type of heroic faith could have kept him hope- 
ful in presence of such grim facts. Nor were 
these the only sad greetings he had to meet. 
For, after landing, the pale face, sunken cheeks, 
and feeble steps of the strong-hearted Miss Far- 
rington, the sole survivor of the Methodist 



48 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

missionary band which had preceded him, told 
him what the invisible pestilence of the place 
might be waiting to inflict on him. Still more 
suggestive was the thought, while resting on his 
couch that night, that he was lying on the same 
bedstead on which the lamented Cox had ceased 
to breathe. Surely these things were gloomy 
enough to sadden any but a noble mind. Did 
they dishearten our missionary ? Kead what he 
said of this first night in Liberia, spent on the 
bedstead of his predecessor, and then judge. 
Writing of himself and of young Burns, who 
slept in the same room, but on another bed, he 
said: 

" Sweet and refreshing rest was soon vouch- 
safed to us, and it was as sound and as safe as 
though we had been in a palace in Europe ! " 

It must be a true and mighty faith that can 
sleep as sweetly as a happy child in its mother's 
arms on another's death-bed in an air laden with 
invisible germs of fever. Well, Seys had that 
faith. And it kept him not only free from the 
fear of death, but active also in the service of 



Lives Given to the Liberian Mission. 49 

his Lord. The deadly fever assailed, but did not 
kill him. He lived to do a blessed work for 
Methodism, for the Christ, and for Liberia. But 
the limits of this sketch do not permit me to 
finish the story of his devotion and success. 

The name of Ann Wilkins must not be left 
out of this brief record of the early workers in 
our Liberian mission. This heroic lady was 
born amid the mountains of the Hudson, near 
West Point. When fourteen years of age she 
gave herself to the service of her Lord. Five 
years later she became a teacher of the young, to 
whom she taught not only the way into the tem- 
ple of human knowledge, but also to the expe- 
rience of divine truth. When thirty years old 
she heard the thrilling story of our mission work 
in Africa, told by one who had been in that field 
of sacrifice and death. Her great heart swelled 
with desire to bear a part in the perils of that 
mission, and she sent a note to Dr. Bangs, then 
Missionary Secretary," containing these noble 
words: 

"A sister who has but little money at 



50 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

command gives that little cheerfully, and is 
willing to give her life as a female teacher if 
she is wanted." 

Such grand spirits are always wanted where 
dangerous work is to be done in the wars of 
Christ's kingdom. Hence, a few months later, 
she was sent with others to combat both with 
the angel of death and the spirit of evil. 
The sight of the palms on the Liberian coast 
filled her soul with hope, albeit she knew that 
the pestilential fever lurked beneath their 
shadows. 

Her feet scarcely touched the soil before she 
began to teach the dark-faced children, and thus 
to prepare the way for a " Female Boarding 
School," in which she was to reign after a time 
as a queen of light and love. Of course the 
deadly fever soon laid her low ; but her strong 
constitution withstood it, and she recovered. A 
second time that enemy of life assailed her and 
bore her again to the brink of death. Then her 
fellow- workers, despite her protests, insisted on 
her return to her native land. She yielded. On 



Lives Given to the Liberian Mission. 51 

lier arrival, the missionary authorities, seeing her 
wasted form, believed that her African work was 
finished. But her undaunted spirit would not 
succumb ; and when three other devoted young 
women resolved to give themselves to the Afri- 
can mission, she went with them to watch over 
and guide them until they were acclimated and 
fairly established in their work. 

Two years more of suffering and toil in 
Liberia compelled her to quit the work she so 
fondly loved. The voyage and her native 
climate so far restored her, that she entered the 
Juvenile Asylum of New York as one of its 
active officers. But she only went there to die. 
Six days of sickness in that institution bore her 
to the gate of heaven. But they were glorious 
days to her, for the light of her coming bliss so 
glorified her, that she appeared to her astonished 
attendants more like an angel of God than a 
dying woman. The glory of her death was the 
beginning of her endless life. O, blessed mis- 
sionary ! O, heroic woman ! Great is thy 

reward in heaven. 
4 



52 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 



CHAPTER III. 

A PLOWMAN'S HEROIC ZEAL. 

" The meal unshared is food unblessed, 
Thou hoard' st in vain what love should spend, 
Self-ease is pain, thy only rest 
Is labor for a worthy end." — Whittier. 

IT was a memorable day in the life of Elisha, 
the son of a wealthy Oriental land-owner, 
when the prophet Elijah found him plowing in 
his father's field. Busy with his large team of 
twelve yoke of oxen, the young farmer probably 
had no thought that a great change in his life- 
work was so close at hand. It may be that his 
young heart had often swelled with desire to do 
something great for God and his country, but as 
yet no door had opened in that direction, and 
he had wisely remained at his post, doing the 
duties nearest his hand and waiting for Heaven- 
ly direction. 

He had now reached his last day of waiting. 



A Plowman's Heroic Zeal. 53 

God's messenger, the grave, the stern, the heroic 
Elijah, enters the field, passes the long team 
consisting of twelve yoke of toiling oxen, and 
approaches Elisha, who was guiding the pair 
next the plow. Then, without saying a word, 
the prophet casts his mantle upon the young 
man's shoulders. 

How did the young plowman know that by 
this silent act Elijah was God's messenger, call- 
ing him from farm work to the high office of a 
prophet ? He knew it because he felt the breath 
of the Unseen One upon his soul, moving him 
to follow Elijah, and giving him an inward 
anointing for the prophetic work. It was the 
critical moment of his life. But he was loyal 
to the God of Israel, and, after kissing a long 
farewell to his father and mother, and preparing 
a repast for his father's servants and neighbors, 
he followed Elijah. As you know, he soon 
became Elijah's successor, and a faithful wonder- 
working prophet among his people. 

By different means, yet by the same inward 
voice, did the God of missions call a young 



54 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

plowman of modern times into the work of 
preaching his Gospel to the Chinese. The name 
of this young tiller of the soil was George 
Piercy. He was born in Yorkshire, England. 
About thirty-three years ago this young man 
gave himself to Christ and joined the Wesleyan 
Church. Like all true disciples, he thought 
much about the heathen in distant lands. 
While following his plow his mind drew pict- 
ures of the countless millions who were suffer- 
ing much misery because of the ignorance and 
idolatry in which they were reared. He heard 
much at that time of the Chinese, whose land, 
long shut np against the feet of foreigners, had 
lately been thrown open to the missionary. He 
knew that the Wesleyans were a missionary 
people ; that they very much wished to send 
men to China, but could not, because of the 
great number of men they had lately sent to 
other parts of the globe. The more he thought 
of China, the more his heart burned with desire 
to go thither himself. Day after day, as he 
plowed or sowed, this desire grew hotter and 



A Plowman's Heroic Zeal. 55 

hotter. At last, as Elisha felt the glow of 
Heaven's call when Elijah threw his mantle on 
his shoulders, so George Piercy one day heard a 
still, small voice in his heart, calling him to go 
to China, and to tell its inhabitants the sweet old 
story of the love of Christ. 

It is not always safe to listen to voices in the 
heart. It is easy to mistake one's own fancies 
for God's voice. Yet, when a secret whisper in 
the soul is followed by larger faith, warmer 
love, and stronger desires to live a good and 
pure life, it must not be altogether disregarded. 
If it really be God's voice it will soon find an 
echo in other minds, drawing their attention to 
the person called to do some special work for 
the Lord. 

Young Piercy was so sure that God's voice 
was speaking to him that he quitted his place, 
which, perhaps, was not a wise thing to do, and 
visited a friendly gentleman, named Peed, who 
lived thirty miles away. To him, among other 
things, he said : 

" Mr. Peed, I have an impression that it is my 



56 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

duty to go to China and tell the people about 
Jesus." 

"The language of the Chinese is not easily 
learned. China is a long, long way off. You 
will have very great obstacles to overcome when 
you get there. You had better go to some less 
difficult field," replied the cautious Mr. Reed. 

But to this and all other arguments, young 
Piercy meekly, yet firmly rejoined: "I believe, 
sir, that God has called me to labor in China. 
I have no such impression that I have a call to 
any other part of the mission field." 

Yet, notwithstanding his firmness, Mr. Reed 
opposed his plans so strongly, that, at the close 
of their interview, young Piercy said : 

" Well, sir, I will give up my idea, at least 
for the present" 

His partial submission to the judgment of a 
man every way superior to himself was praise- 
worthy. It was certainly proper to wait awhile, 
though still keeping his purpose to be loyal to 
his impression if it should finally prove itself to 
be from God. 



A Plowman's Heroic Zeal. 57 

Once more young Pierey wrought diligently 
at his farm work. But neither the joyous 
shouts of the reapers at the harvest-home, nor 
the stroke of the thresher's flail on the hard 
floor in winter, could prevent him from hearing 
that still, small voice which, with increasing 
emphasis, continued to bid him go to China. 
Through six months it kept speaking in the 
inmost chambers of his soul. And then, feel- 
ing sure that it was his duty to obey it, he paid 
another visit to his friend Reed, to whom he 
said, very modestly : 

" The impression on my mind regarding 
China not only continues, but it is deeper than 
ever, sir." 

After some conversation, Mr. Reed, satisfied 
that his visitor's convictions of duty could not 
be rooted out, and that he was resolved to follow 
them, gave him a letter of introduction to the 
Rev. William Arthur, one of the Secretaries of 
the Wesleyan Missionary Society. 

Armed with this friendly missive our resolute 
plowman trudged to London, saw the amiable 



58 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

and large-hearted Secretary, told his story, but 
gained no encouragement. The Society had no 
money which could be used at that time to 
commence a mission in so vast an empire as 
China. 

Was the young man discouraged? Did he 
begin to think that he was mistaken, and that it 
was his own, and not God's, voice that he had 
heard whispering so long in his soul. No, no j 
He was neither disheartened nor doubting. He 
seems to have had the faith of a saint and the 
courage of a hero. Hence, he took the little 
sum of money he had saved out of his wages, 
paid the price of his own passage, and sailed for 
China, without the promise of help from any 
human being. Like Abraham of old, he went 
forth not knowing precisely whither he was 
going, nor how he was to get bread to eat in a 
strange land and among a people of strange 
speech. 

When about to sail he wrote to his friend 
Eeed, telling him what he had done. Very 
likely the gentleman shook his head over that 



A Plowman's Heroic Zeal. 59 

letter, and said in his heart that the young man 
was acting unwisely, that he had more zeal than 
wisdom. And he was unwise if the voice in his 
heart was not from heaven ; but if it was, then 
he was acting a grand and noble part. He w T as 
calmly facing hardship, danger, possibly death, 
for his Master's sake. He was bravely placing 
himself on the altar of humanity, willing to be 
a sacrifice if so be he might bring a few Chinese 
idolaters to sing the praises of the Christ he 
loved. O noble-souled George Piercy! O true 
missionary of the cross ! 

What this devout hero felt while on his long 
wearisome voyage, what fears, what hopes he 
had, I do not know. Being a man, he must have 
had, some dark, dreary moments of doubt and 
depression. But being a true, loving disciple, 
strong in his conviction that he was in the path 
of duty, there is no reason for doubting that his 
sunny hours were vastly more numerous than 
his cloudy ones. The smile of Christ within 
his soul, and the star of hope beaming from his 
sky, kept him happy and cheerful. 



60 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

Let us join him on the 30tli of January, 1851, 
as he stands on the shore at Hong-Kong, a small 
island in the mouth of the Canton River, China. 
The scene is not inviting. The island is mount- 
ainous and barren. It is a British colony, but 
most of its 32,000 people are Chinese. There 
is no friend there to greet our young missionary. 
He has but little money on which to support 
himself. No wonder he stands gazing around 
with his heart beating hard in his bosom. What 
can that poor friendless stranger do ? He scarcely 
knows. Yet he has one straw on which to build 
a hope of finding friends and an open door. 
What is it ? Nothing but a bit of information 
gleaned in England, that among the British 
soldiers stationed in Hong-Kong, there is a Ser- 
geant Ross and a few praying Wesleyan soldiers. 
" I will find Sergeant Ross," he says to himself ; 
and then, after inquiring his way to the bar- 
racks, he enters, and says to the first soldier he 
meets : 

" Can you tell me where I can find Sergeant 
Ross?" 



A Plowman's Heroic Zeal. 61 

" He is dead ! " is the man's reply. 

Poor Piercy's. heart almost dies too. For a 
moment his head swims, his nerves are unstrung, 
and his tongue falters, as he inquires into the 
particulars of the sergeant's death. 

" He was a young man but an old Christian," 
said the young soldier, with much feeling. 
" He was the center of a little band of six or 
seven who sought to save their souls. They 
often met in his room. But he died, as did 
some of the other. The rest became indiffer- 
ent. I have often longed and prayed for a 
religious companion." 

These words from the soldier, whose dress 
told that he was a corporal in his regiment, 
were to Mr. Piercy what the sight of an oasis 
is to the traveler in. a desert. He had found a 
Christian brother who could at least understand 
his motive in coming to China, and who, though 
poor and without social influence, might be the 
first link in a chain of providences leading him 
to success in soul winning. It took but a 
little while to bring the corporal and the 



62 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

missionary into the sweet fellowship of Chris- 
tian love." 

" You had better see Dr. Legge, of the London 
Missionary Society. He is said to be very lib- 
eral in his feelings," said the pious corporal, 
after hearing Mr. Piercy's story. 

So to Mr. Legge's house they went together. 
Finding that gentleman not at home, but 
preaching in the Chinese chapel, they went 
thither and listened to his sermon. At the 
close of the sermon the corporal introduced 
Piercy to the doctor, who, after hearing his 
brief account of himself, said, very kindly ; 

" Come to my house ; I have a bed at your 
service. To-morrow will bring us leisure to 
consider further." 

Thus Mr. Piercy found shelter on the first 
night after his arrival at Hong-Kong. He also 
found something more than a lodging. For 
when he opened his heart to Dr. Legge, that 
noble missionary also opened his heart to the 
unknown stranger, and said : 

"Do nothing rashly, Mr. Piercy. Look 



A Plowman's Heroic Zeal. 63 

around. Watch prayerfully for the moving of 
the cloud of providence. After ten or twelve 
days, perhaps, you will see your way. In the 
meantime you are welcome to a bed and the 
room you have been in, in this house." 

This was, indeed, generous treatment. No 
wonder Piercy said : " I thanked God and took 
courage." It looked as if He who had called 
him to China was opening a way by which he 
might attain the ends of his coming. 

Mr. Piercy was no dreamer. He did not sit 
down in Dr. Legge's house and wait for some- 
thing to happen. He looked for an opportunity, 
and finding a room that would hold some sixty 
persons, he hired it, and began preaching to the 
English soldiers. He also visited the military 
hospital. He took lessons in medicine from 
Dr. Herschberg with a view to using his knowl- 
edge for missionary purposes at some future 
time. God blesged his labors among the sol- 
diers and their wives, and he soon had a little 
society of twenty souls. These gave good proof 
of their piety by contributing from their poverty 



64: Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

to the support of their heroic minister, whose 
little store of money was soon exhausted. 
Besides their help, his friends in England, 
having heard of his departure, sent him small 
sums; so that he was able to give his whole 
time to the work he loved, instead of taking 
some business position, as he feared, when he 
started, he should be forced to do. Thus, you 
see, God was faithful to this good man whom, 
by a special call of the Spirit, he had sent into 
China. 

It was not to enlightened Englishmen, but to 
blinded heathens, that Piercy had a mission. 
Still feeling this call, he decided, after a few 
months very usefully spent both in preaching 
and in the study of the Chinese language, to quit 
Hong-Kong and go to Canton. Once in that 
great city, he could stand on the veranda of his 
temporary home and see spread out before him 
the homes of nearly five hundred thousand 
heathen souls. This spectacle made him sad. It 
also made his heart swell with burning desire to 
go in and out among them, talking to them in 



A Plowman's Heroic Zeal. 65 

their own tongue of Jesus and his wonderful 
love. And this desire stirred him to constant 
study of their language, to the daily circulation 
of Christian tracts and Bibles in Chinese, and to 
preaching, through an interpreter, to a small 
congregation of natives, whom he soon gathered 
in a hired room. 

Mr. Piercy soon found that a missionary to 
the heathen needs much patience, great courage, 
and mighty faith in the words of Christ. As 
when one wishes to blast a very hard rock, he 
must first slowly drill a hole for his powder, so 
must the missionary toil hard for a time before 
he can even win the attention of heathen souls. 
They seemed to say to him : 

" Your doctrine is good for foreigners, but it 
is of no use to us. We have our own sages. 
Jesus is a sage of the West. Let the foreigners 
follow him ! " 

Yet he found some of them willing to take 
Christian books and tracts. A few would some- 
times ask him questions, through his interpreter, 
in his preaching-room. This encouraged him to 



66 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

keep up his study of their language, and to look 
with desire for the day in which he should be 
able to preach to them without an interpreter. 

Meantime his noble example was working on 
other minds in England in favor of China. A 
student in the Wesleyan Theological School was 
so moved by it that he stood ready to join him 
without any promise of support from the Mis- 
sionary Society. Another young minister caught 
the same spirit. Both applied to the Secretaries, 
begging to be sent out. At the same moment, 
almost, a liberal Wesleyan layman became so 
deeply interested for China that he offered five 
thousand dollars down on the day that two mis- 
sionaries should sail to join Mr. Piercy, and 
thenceforth to give five hundred dollars per 
annum for the support of the mission. Other 
hearts were also stirred to offer gifts for the 
same purpose. These signs of God's working 
in behalf of China encourage the Mission- 
ary Committee. After due consideration they 
adopted Mr. Piercy as their missionary, 
and sent out William R. Beach, Josiah 



A Plowman's Heroic Zeal. 67 

Cox, and Miss Warm op, a trained teacher, to 
assist him. 

Thus, you see, Mr. Piercy's loyalty to the 
voice of the Holy Spirit not only led him into 
the Chinese mission-field, but also became a prin- 
cipal cause of the founding of a Wesleyan 
Mission in that most thickly populated of all 
lands. Impressions, as observed above, are not 
usually safe guides to duty; but in this good 
man's case his success seems to prove that his 
remarkable impression was not the birth of an 
idle fancy, but a veritable call from the God of 

missions. 
5 



68 Missionary Heeoes and Heeoines. 



CHAPTEE IV. 

ON THE BANKS OF THE GAMBIA RIVER. 

11 He who plowed and who sowed is not missed by the reaper : 
He is only remembered by what he has done. 

Not myself, but the truth in life that I have spoken, 
Not myself, but the seed that in life I have sown 

Shall pass on to ages ; all about me forgotten, 

Save the truth I have spoken, the things I have done." 

— HORATIUS BONAR. 

LET us imagine ourselves in the city of 
London at the Wesleyan Mission House in 
Hatton Garden, where it stood some fifty years 
ago. It is a chilly October morning and we are 
sitting before a blazing coal-fire listening to a 
number of young men who are candidates for 
missionary fields. A rapping on the outer door 
is heard. It is opened, and a negro girl bearing 
a poor sickly white child in her arms is ushered 
into the room. Who is she? What does she 
want? 



On the Banks of the Gambia. 69 

Her story is simple and very sad. She is the 
child's nurse. The little one is fatherless and 
motherless. His father, a Wesleyan missionary, 
named Marshall, had died on the banks of the 
Gambia not long before. His mother, with this 
nurse and her infant child, had sailed for England 
a few days after the burial of her beloved hus- 
band, and arrived safely at Bristol. But en- 
feebled by the deadly fever which had robbed 
her of her husband, and filled with grief at her 
loss, she, too, had passed into the land of the 
eternal some forty-eight hours after touching the 
soil of her native land. This colored girl, the 
child's nurse, had hastened to London and now, 
with many tears, she tells this sad story to the 
Missionary Secretaries and the young men who 
were waiting to enter upon mission work. 

Had those aspiring youths been self -loving 
sinners this tale of death and sorrow would have 
made them say, " Don't send us to Africa ! " 
But they were not selfish. The love of Him 
who left heaven to seek and save the lost had 
been poured into their noble hearts. Their 



70 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

highest aspiration was to please him and do his 
work. Hence one of them, named William 
Moister, was moved to brave the prospect of 
speedy death and to say, in the spirit of the 
loftiest heroism, " Here am I, send me to the 
mission on the Gambia ! " 

So many Wesleyan missionaries had died in 
Western Africa that, to succeed them, was like 
walking into the open jaws of death. The heroic 
young Moister was engaged to a young lady who 
had promised to be his bride. Would she consent 
to go with him to that land of death ? She did 
consent, for she, too, was made of noble stuff. So 
they were married, sailed for Africa, and in 
due time arrived at the island of St. Mary's, in 
the mouth of the Gambia River. 

The mission converts soon heard that a mis- 
sionary and his wife were on board the brig. 
They gathered along the shore to greet them. 
Some of them rushed into the water when the 
boat which bore the missionary and his wife 
neared the landing place, and carried them 
ashore in their arms. There a crowd of negroes 



On the Banks of the Gambia. 71 

gathered about them weeping for joy. Kissing 
the hands of the strangers, and fervently saying : 

" Tank God, tank God ! Mr. Marshall die, but 
God send us nuder minister." 

This was a delightful reception. The place, 
too, was beautiful. Stately palm-trees gracefully 
bowed their lofty heads in the gentle breeze. 
The verdure was deep and rich. The scenery 
bore no signs that this was a land of death. 
Our missionaries were also greatly pleased with 
the situation of the mission house. When they 
approached it they saw a jessamine in flower at 
its door-step. Mr. Moister hailed this sweet 
flower smiling upon them as a good omen. His 
bride also accepted it as such, though she could 
not wholly suppress a sigh when the thought that 
its situation on the door-step was a sign that the 
hand of death had been its guardian, since, but 
for the blow which felled the late occupant of 
the house, the jessamine could not have held pos- 
session of the door-step on which it flourished. 
The thought chilled them both, but prayer and 
hope quickly restored them to cheerfulness. 



72 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

They began their work at once preaching to the 
people and teaching the children. They soon 
saw fruit of their faithful labor. Many poor 
negroes sought Jesus. The children quickly 
learned to read and sew. Better still, many of 
them also learned to pray. These were the good 
things for which our missionaries had come to 
Africa, therefore, like an ancient apostle, they 
thanked God and took courage. 

After a few months Mr. Moister felt that he 
ought to sail up the Gambia to a trading settle- 
ment where he might find quite a number of 
people to whom he wished to preach Jesus. 
His wife had to be left at the mission house to 
take care of the children in their schools. It was 
not pleasant for her to be thus left among negroes 
in a sickly place. But God made her heart 
strong and, though sad in spirit, she bade him a 
cheerful adieu, and he started on his mission of 
mercy. 

To sail up the Gambia in a little sloop, in a 
hot sickly climate, exposed when on shore to 
wild beasts and savage men, was not pastime, but 



On the Banks of the Gambia. 73 

a dangerous adventure. Our missionary did it 
for his beloved Master's sake, and though it was 
quite probable he might be killed by wild men 
or die of fever, yet he started in cheerful mood. 
After one day's sail and a night on shore, he 
stopped at a place where the people, thinking 
he might be a slave stealer, ran away and hid 
themselves in the woods. They had never yet 
seen a missionary. He soon won the confidence 
of some. The others then returned. The chil- 
dren gathered about him, touched his hand, 
wondered at its whiteness, and asked : 

" Is the white man all white ? or are only his 
hands and face of that color ? " 

He turned up his coat sleeves. After looking 
at his arm, they clapped their hands gleefully 
and said to each other, " He is every bit white, 
We never saw such a fine white man." 

But when he spoke to the people about God, 
they only smiled and said, "White man's re- 
ligion is good for white man; black man's re- 
ligion is good for black man." Still, at his 
request, they listened to a sermon which he 



74 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

preached under a shed through an inter- 
preter. 

The next day the heavens suddenly became 
black. Thunder roared in fearful peals, and 
flashes of terrific lightning darted from the sky. 
The wind was awfully violent. The boat was 
torn from their vessel and they were forced to 
cast anchor in as safe a spot as they could reach. 
This was a tornado, the sign of the near approach 
of the rainy season. It was his first experience 
of such a storm, but by no means his last. 

More painful to our missionary than the tor- 
nado was the vileness of the poor people who 
had been taught by white slave stealers to love 
rum. As the sloop sailed slowly up the river, 
canoes paddled by natives constantly shot out 
from the shore. The cry of their occupants was 
not for the water of life, but for the fire-water 
of death. " Mi ma sugar ! Mi ma rum ! " that 
is, " Give me sugar ! Give me rum ! " they 
shouted. Alas ! that men calling themselves by 
the pure name of Christian, should have gone 
before the missionary, not to prepare his way, 



On the Banks of the Gambia. 75 

Tyut to make it more difficult to win tliem to 
Christ. Yet in spite of all this our missionary, 
after spending a week or two at a village on 
McCarthy's Island, found the people so interested 
in his preaching as to beg him to come again or 
to send them a " white minister " 

On returning home Mr. Moister found his 
wife in good health. During his absence, how- 
ever, she had been both annoyed and frightened 
by parties of natives who, stopping at the mis- 
sion house, said, "We have come to pay our 
respects to the white minister." 

"He is not at home," the servant said. 
"Then," they replied, "we wish to see the 
white lady." 

Afraid to refuse, Mrs. Moister said they might 
enter the house. Seated on her chair in the 
middle of the room, she awaited their com- 
ing. The door opened. The savage, half-nude 
creatures filed in, squatted on the floor around 
her chair, gazing with curious eyes upon her, 
for she was the only white lady on the island. 
In their hands they bore spears and war clubs. 



76 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

Do you wonder that she felt afraid? and that 
her voice trembled as she asked them, 

" Why have you come here ? What do you 
want?" 

Their reply was in their native language which 
meant, said her school-boy interpreter, " We 
have only come to pay you compliment, ma'am." 
Then she told them about Jesus and his word, 
gave them pieces of red cloth, a few needles, 
and some beads which pleased them. Then 
thanking her with many bows and grimaces they 
filed out and returned to their inland homes. 
Several such parties had visited her during her 
husband's trip up the river. Their visits tested 
her courage. But her faith in Him at whose 
command she had entered on missionary work 
made her woman's heart strong to endure this 
and many other trials. 

Worse than these savage visitors was the com- 
ing of the deadly fever into their missionary 
home. On a Sunday evening it smote her, 
causing her blood to course through her veins 
like liquid fire. Her husband hurried to the 



On the Banks of the Gambia. 77 

doctor of the colony for medical help. What 
medical skill could do that gentleman did. But 
the fever fought fiercely for so fair a victim, 
and the missionary saw his beloved helpmeet 
sink lower and lower until life seemed almost 
extinct. Hope was changing to despair when 
the Master of life touched the fountains of her 
vital forces with healing hand. She rallied and 
gradually recovered. 

Weary with long watching and wearing 
anxiety, though glad of heart at seeing his wife 
well again, our missionary himself was notified 
by a violent headache, pain in the limbs, and 
burning heat through his body, that the dreaded 
fever was about to assail him. With determined 
effort he struggled against it. Vain contest! 
He was no match for the powerful coast fever. 
It took possession of him and drove him close 
to the realm of death. His wife grew anxious. 
His physician watched him closely. His negro 
converts held meetings night after night pray- 
ing for his recovery. The crisis came. He too 
rallied and recovered. 



78 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

This was his first, but not his last, attack of 
fever. Again and again both he and his wife 
were smitten low by it. And after they quitted 
this deadly field of missionary labor each of 
them could and did say, 

" Oft from the margin of the grave, 
Thou Lord, hast lifted up my head ; 

Sudden I found thee near to save, 
The fever owned thy touch and fled." 

Scarcely had Mr. Moister left his bed before 
the hoarse voice of war reached his ears. The 
fierce Mandingo tribes were in arms. The 
island of St. Mary, which was their chief mission 
field, was in danger owing to the vast numbers 
of the savage negroes and the smallness of the 
British force which held the island. In the 
emergency every one was called on to defend 
the place. Men were armed and drilled, women 
and children carried stone for the erection of a 
fort. Even Mrs. Moister and her school girls 
made sand bags for the erection of movable bat- 
teries. The principal fighting was done within 
sight of the island. The dead and wounded 



Ok the Banks of the Gambia. 79 

were brought in after every conflict. The noise, 
bustle, and carnage of war almost broke up the 
mission schools, and the congregation grew small 
and irregular Happily, however, some English 
vessels of war came to their relief. The Man- 
dingoes were routed and peace once more reigned 
over the island. Then our missionary resumed 
his labors with his old vigor, thankful that he 
and his wife had been brought safely through 
the distressing perils into which their desire to 
save lost souls had led them. 

In one of his visits to M'Carthy's Island, Mr. 
Moister could find no place of shelter but a mis- 
erable, forsaken hut. He took possession of it, 
and, having brought a supply of food with him, 
proceeded, with the aid of his negro boy, to pre- 
pare his evening meal. There was no furniture 
in the wretched hut. Finding an old window 
shutter near by and an empty flour barrel he 
placed the former on the latter and thus made 
a table. An empty bottle served as a candle- 
stick. An old native loaned him " a white man's 
chair." After eating a frugal supper he sought 



80 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

a place to sleep. The hut was damp and chilly? 
utterly unfit to sleep in. He went outside and 
found an open shed in the yard. Seeing an old 
gate he moved it into the shed, propped it up with 
stones, spread his mattrass upon it and went to 
sleep. Awaking in the night he saw in the 
bright moonlight two or three large lizards 
crawling very near to him. At first the sight 
of these disgusting creatures inclined him to get 
up and drive them away. Then, thinking, u they 
are harmless," he closed his eyes and went to 
sleep again. These discomforts were frequent 
w T hen on his missionary tours, but they did not 
chill his zeal nor cause him to regret that he was 
working for Jesns on the banks of the Gambia. 
Had not Jesus suffered even death for him ? 

Let us now follow him to a village named 
Yassow, whither he went one day to visit the 
Mandingo king, Bruma. The streets round the 
royal residence are narrow and dirty, the palace (?) 
is a square tower built of mud. Just inside its 
door is a rude hall, with various figures on the 
roughly painted walls. Next to this is a court- 



On the Banks of the Gambia. 81 

yard. Let us pass with Mr. Moister through this 
yard and into a common mud- walled hut. Here 
is the sable monarch, not seated on a throne, but 
reclining on a couch. He is intoxicated, and 
cannot sit up until helped to do so by his 
attendants. He cannot say much, but tries to 
be very polite to the missionary. 

After a few minutes, he draws an old English 
tea-kettle from under his couch. This is his 
majesty's decanter. It contains rum ! See ! 
he places the spout to his lips and drinks freely. 
Now he pours the fiery poison into a calabash 
and offers it to the missionary, who, of course, 
declines to take it. But what do these naked 
children want who come running into the royal 
hut ? Rum ! The king gives them the calabash. 
They drink heartily. The missionary now 
explains the object of his coming to Africa. 
The tipsy king listens with a stupefied gaze and 
says, in reply, " It is very good." You can easily 
see however that he cares nothing about it. 

The missionary prepares to leave. King 
Bruma gives him a calabash of honey. His 



82 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

visitor in return gives him several silver pieces. 
His majesty is not satisfied, but begs for every 
thing lie sees about Mr. Moister's person, even to 
his penknife. As Mr. Moister bows his farewell 
and returns to his boat, the thought of this sinful 
king fills him with disgust ; but when he thinks 
that he and his people are immortal creatures 
whom Jesus died to save, his heart swells with 
grief and pity, and he resolves to be more than 
ever zealous in teaching them the blessed Gos- 
pel which he knows, by what he sees every day, 
is able to make even them wise unto salvation. 
Christ-like is the spirit of every true mis- 
sionary ! 

Two years of hardship, faithful work, and 
frequent attacks of fever bore Mr. and Mrs. 
Moister toward the brink of the grave. They 
had seen nearly a hundred of those degraded 
Africans made happy in Christ, and had taught 
numerous children about Jesus. They loved 
their work, yet felt that they must leave it or 
die. Other missionaries having come from 
England to take their places, they bade farewell 



On the Banks of the Gambia. 83 

to their converts, who wept to see them depart. 
They then took ship for their native land, where 
in due time they arrived safely. Surely in that 
day in which the Lord will make up his jewels 
such disciples as Mr. and Mrs. Moister will be 
accounted worthy to be numbered among the 
Lord's most honored servants. And it surely 
cannot be that so long as men and women will- 
ing to endure hardness as they did in mission 
fields, those who love Christ will not refuse to 
give the money needed to send them forth with 
their sickles to help reap in the Lord's harvest 

fields! 
6 



84 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 



CHAPTEE V. 

INDIAN VOICES. 

" Spread, mighty Gospel ! spread thy soaring wings ! 

Gather thy scattered ones from every land ; 
Call home the wanderers to the King of kings ; 

Proclaim them all thy own ; 'tis Christ's command." 

— C. Ashworth. 

SOME of the grandest rivers on the earth owe 
their origin to a streamlet so scant that a 
thirsty ox might drink it dry. In like manner, 
many of the most important facts in the lives 
of men and nations are born of words w r hich, 
but for the power of God, would have vanished 
like the breath with which they were spoken. 
In this sketch you may learn how a few words 
spoken by a rude hunter to some ignorant 
Indians became the seeds of a most precious 
harvest. 

About half a century ago, a hunter and trap- 
per, while seeking game in the vast forests 
bordering on the Pacific Coast, fell in with a 



Indian Yoices. 85 

tribe of Indians known as " Flatheads." They 
bore this odd name because their foreheads were 
flattened into an acute angle. Nature did not 
give them this strange def ormrty ; but it was 
formed by the custom of the tribe to tightly 
strap a board upon the head of every infant 
until it grew permanently into this unnatural 
shape. Our hunter, when on the hunting- 
grounds of these people, happened one day to 
witness some of their religious ceremonies. 
Whether he felt Christian pity for their igno- 
rance, or was disgusted at the sight of such 
folly, is not known. But, whatever his motive, 
he said to one of the chiefs : 

" Your worship is all wrong. In the far East 
the white man has a book which tells about the 
true God, and how men can worship him 
aright." 

These simple words sank into the hearts of 
the Indians. One cannot doubt that the Holy 
Spirit made them things of power, exciting their 
desire to learn what this wonderful book con- 
tained. So, after much talking about what the 



86 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

trapper had said, they sent four of their chiefs 
across the Rocky Mountains in search of white 
men who could give them the Holy Book, and 
teach them how to worship God aright. 

The journey was long. Three thousand 
miles of trackless wilderness, uninhabited ex- 
cept by a few Indian tribes, lay between their 
native wigwams and the city of St. Louis, 
whither they bent their steps. True, they were 
used to life in the wilderness ; for food they 
could kill the animals, with which the forests 
and plains then abounded. Nevertheless, the 
length of the journey, the severe storms, the 
treacherous swamps, the steep mountain passes, 
the dry, almost waterless, plains, and other hin- 
derances, created hardships and dangers, trying 
even to Indian craft, skill, and strength. Proof 
of this was given when, shortly after their ar- 
rival in St. Louis, two of those hardy chiefs 
died, literally w T orn out by the toils they 
had endured. Their companions started on 
their return journey, but whether they ever 
reached the village of their tribe no man 



Indiax Yoices. 87 

knows. Most likely they perished on the 
way. 

But, though those red inquirers after truth 
died, their singular mission proved to be a bless- 
ing, if not to their own people especially, yet to 
the country from which they came. In St. Louis 
they told their story to General Clarke, whom 
they had seen in their own land when he was 
on an exploring expedition to the Pacific Coast 
some time before. The general related the facts 
to others. They found their way into print. 
The President of the Young Men's Missionary 
Society, in New York, learned them. He pub- 
lished their substance in our " Christian Advo- 
cate. 1 " They might have passed unheeded even 
there before the eye of our Church had not the 
Holy Spirit used them as sparks to kindle a holy 
fire in the heart of one of her noblest minds. 
When that paper reached the study of Dr. Wilbur 
Fisk, President of Wesleyan University, Mid- 
dletown, Connecticut, and that man of blessed 
memory read of the four Flathead chiefs and 
their venturesome journey, his heart leaped with 



88 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

wonder and joy. He seized liis pen and wrote 
an article bearing this stirring title : 

" Hear ! hear ! Who will respond to the call 
from beyond the Rocky Mountains ? " 

His article sounded through the Church like 
the blast of a trumpet summoning an army to 
battle. It called for men with the heroic spirit 
of martyrs to go to the Flathead Nation. " Were 
I young and unincumbered," said the great- 
hearted scholar, " how joyfully would I go ! " 

Nor did Dr. Fisk trust wholly to this grand 
appeal. He wrote to our Missionary Board 
with such effect that, in a few weeks, that body 
requested our Bishops to establish an " Aborig- 
inal mission west of the Rocky Mountains." 

The zealous doctor wrote also to Jason Lee, 
once tutor in Wilbraham Academy, but then a 
missionary to Indians in Canada. To him he 
said : " Money shall be forthcoming. I will be 
bondsman for the Church." 

Lee promptly replied, "I will go." His 
nephew, Daniel Lee, also consented to enter the 
almost unknown missionary field. Two laymen, 



Indian Voices. 89 

named Cyrus Shepard and J. S. Edwards, also 
agreed to accompany them. 

The call of Dr. Fisk communicated his own 
lofty inspiration to the whole Church, and also 
to Christians of other names. As Dr. Reid, 
without the least exaggeration, observes : " All 
the land was in a flame." Men became eager to 
give their money to send missionaries to a people 
w T ho had sent messengers three thousand miles 
asking for the truth. One young man gladly 
laid all his property, two thousand dollars, on 
the missionary altar to be expended in an effort 
to give light to those inquiring Flatheads. If 
their messengers had accomplished nothing more 
than the enkindling of this grand missionary 
enthusiasm, their long journey would not have 
been in vain. But though the precise end they 
sought was not achieved, yet, as we shall see, 
they were God's instruments for doing a still 
greater work. 

Thus did God move some men to go, and 
others to give the money to pay the expenses of 
their journey. But how were they to reach that 



90 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

distant spot ? To go by sea, round stormy Cape 
Horn, implied a dreary voyage of some twenty 
thousand miles in a sailing vessel. To go by 
land, as the Indian chiefs had come, was to face 
hardships such as few besides Indians inured to 
the privations of savage life, or hunters and ex- 
plorers hardened by habit and skilled in wood- 
craft, could endure. To-day our broad continent 
can be crossed from sea to sea in sumptuous 
cars ; but, half a century ago, after reaching the 
Mississippi, the journey liad to be made afoot or 
on horseback, slowly, tediously, amid perils of 
the wilderness, the forest, the desert plain, the 
wild mountain pass, the swollen river, the rage 
of wild beasts, and the treachery of the red men 
of the woods. Our missionaries elect were un- 
used to such hardships and perils. Nevertheless, 
they had heroic souls, ready to dare for their 
Lord whatever men could reasonably hope to 
accomplish. And when a Massachusetts man, 
named Captain N. J. Wyette, who had previously 
crossed the Rocky Mountains, consented to act 
as their guide, they cheerfully turned their backs 



Indian Voices. 91 

on pleasant homes and affectionate friends, and 
plunged into the wilderness on their perilous 
-errand of love. 

It would, no doubt, interest you very deeply 
to learn how this noble little band marched, 
camped, forded rivers, threaded swamps, as- 
cended mountain roads, endured unusual toils, 
and lived on food which, but for the clamors of 
appetites made keen by out-door life, would 
have been utterly unpalatable. But in a brief 
sketch like this such details cannot be given. 
You must, therefore, be content with the state- 
ment that, after nearly five months of travel, 
they arrived, on the 1st of September, 1834, at 
Walla Walla, near the point where that stream 
pours its waters into the broad Columbia River, 
in w^hat is now known as the State of Oregon. 

Did they find the Flathead Indians in Oregon ? 
They did, but not in such numbers as they had 
been taught to expect. They proved to be only 
a very small tribe. This was a disappointment. 
But our missionaries met with some other Indian 
tribes, and with some white men who had been 



92 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

attracted to the territory in search of adventures 
or gain, or both. Some of these whites were 
in almost as much need of missionaries as the 
more ignorant Indians, since they had never 
heard a Gospel sermon until they listened to 
these Methodist preachers. 

Though disappointed with respect to the num- 
ber of the Indian population, our adventurous 
missionaries were not disheartened. They did 
not, they could not, then know the vast impor- 
tance of their presence in that beautiful part of 
our great country. But He who had, no doubt, 
given secret inspiration to the movements 
which had led them thither, made them hopeful 
and courageous. Like men who felt they had a 
great work before them, they looked for a 
suitable site for their mission, praying the God 
of missions to direct them. They finally chose 
the beautiful valley of the Wallamette, where 
they built log-houses, and laid up a stock of pro- 
visions for the approaching winter. After a 
time their goods, which had been sent round 
Cape Horn, arrived. The winter passed. Spring 



Indian Voices. 93 

brought with it the necessity of preparing land 
for crops on which to subsist. They could ob- 
tain no helpers, and therefore had to plow, 
harrow, sow, plant, hoe, and reap with their own 
hands. This was farming, but it was necessary 
to the missionary work they hoped to do, since 
Christ does not feed his servants on manna, as 
he did the Jews in the Sinaitic desert, but by 
the usual processes of nature. 

You must not suppose, however, that these 
devoted men gave themselves wholly to farm- 
ing. Their hearts forbade them to do that. 
Hence, with longing desire to do their Lord's 
work, they opened a school for Indian children ; 
they preached as opportunity afforded ; they 
sought for suitable points at which to locate 
missions among different Indian tribes scattered 
over the neighboring country. As they pur- 
sued their inquiries the prospect for doing good 
enlarged. They longed to place teachers and 
preachers among many tribes of red men, and 
therefore sent home for more missionaries. 

The impulse given to missionary feeling by 



94 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

the visit of the four Flathead chiefs, so eloquently 
set forth in Dr. Fisk's inspiring call, had not yet 
died out. Our Missionary Board, therefore, 
responded by sending large re-enforcements by 
way of the sea, so that by 1836 no less than twelve 
adults and three children were added to the four 
pioneers who had formed the vanguard of this 
devoted band. 

Still the laborers seemed too few for the har- 
vest they hoped to reap. Then Jason Lee said, 
" I will go to the States for re-enforcements." 

Attended by one of his brethren and two In- 
dian boys, Lee started on his return trip across 
the Rocky Mountains. After a few days' travel 
messengers overtook him bearing these sad 
tidings : 

"Your wife and her new-born babe are 
dead!" 

The missionary's heart was sorely wounded. 
Yet, knowing that if he returned he could not 
look on the now decaying form of her he loved, 
he pressed on, though with a heavy heart. His 
presence in the East fanned the missionary 



Indian Voices. 95 

enthusiasm of the Church into a flame. Money 
poured into the missionary treasury, and in 
October, 1839, the then unexampled number of 
thirty-six missionary assistants, including preach- 
ers, teachers, farmers, and mechanics, sailed for 
Oregon. Wisely or unwisely, it was thought 
best to connect much secular work with the 
spiritual interests of this great mission. 

"But what of the Indians?" inquires the 
reader. " Were many of them saved by those 
missionaries ? " 

Many Indians were brought under Christian 
instruction. How many were actually led to 
Christ I do not know. Perhaps nothing like 
the number hoped for by the Church in the 
States, or by the noble men and women in 
Oregon. Perhaps the mission was on too grand 
a scale for the population. Yet it was not 
either labor or money wasted. Its magnitude, 
and the peculiar occasion that called it into 
being, attracted much public attention to the 
country. Emigrants began to pour into its 
fruitful valleys. The missionaries, being on the 



96 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

ground, met them with the holy Gospel. Many 
of them were converted and organized into 
Methodist Episcopal Churches. Thus the infant 
State had in this mission a spiritual cradle in 
which it was faithfully nursed into the pos- 
session of a Christian character. The Jesuit 
priests, whose influence over the Indians is 
never desirable and who did their best to make 
the country British, were held in check, and 
Oregon, largely through the influence of our 
mission, became American. What it has al- 
ready accomplished has amply repaid its cost. 
Its beneficial influence is still working in the 
life of its people, who have just occasion to 
thank God for what our Church did in response 
to the inquiry of the four Flathead chiefs. 



Among New Zealand Savages. 99 



CHAPTER VI. 

HEROIC WORK AMONG NEW ZEALAND SAVAGES. 

"Which is love? 
To do God's will or merely suffer it ? 
I must headlong into seas of toil, 
Leap forth from self, and spend my soul on others." 

— Charles Kingsley. 

IN the vast Pacific Ocean there are thought to 
be not less than ten thousand islands. In 
this sketch I wish to introduce you to one group 
of these " isles of the sea," known as New Zea- 
land, which was visited sixty years ago by one 
of the most heroic men who ever bore the hon- 
ored name of Missionary. This gentleman's 
name was Nathaniel Turner. He was an 
Englishman, and a member of the Wesleyan 
Methodist Church. After enlisting under his 
Lord's banner he heard a voice in his heart bid- 
ding him carry the "good things" of the Gospel 
to some heathen land. The Wesleyan Mission- 



100 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

ary Society approved him; but, its treasury 
being fifty thousand dollars in debt, Mr. Turner 
was told to wait until money enough could be 
found to send him out. 

About that time a Mr. Leigh, a missionary in 
New South "Wales, who had visited New Zea- 
land for his health, came to England. The sad 
condition of the New Zealanders had touched 
his heart, and he implored the Committee to 
start a mission among them. When he found 
the Committee had no money, he obtained per- 
mission from the Wesley an Conference to beg 
articles of manufacture which might be as good 
as money to missionaries who could barter them 
among the natives for land, building materials, 
and food. It was an odd thing to do, yet it 
succeeded. He begged an immense number of 
axes, razors, fish-hooks, pots and kettles, with 
prints and calicoes, and much other goods. 
These were shipped at once, and a message sent 
to the waiting Mr. Turner, saying, 
" Prepare to go to New Zealand ! " 
Mr. Turner knew full well that the New 



Among New Zealand Savages. 101 

Zealanders were fierce savages, to whom human 
flesh was the daintiest of dishes. Nevertheless 
he gladly obeyed this order. And Miss Anna 
Sargent, to whom he was betrothed, undismayed 
by the prospect of a long and dangerous voyage, 
or by the possibility of being killed and eaten by 
cannibals, consented to become this missionary's 
bride. And thus it came to pass that on the 3d 
of August, 1823, this heroic pair landed at the 
Bay of Islands, New Zealand, where the mem- 
bers of the " Church Mission " received them 
very kindly. The Wesley an Mission, the site 
of which had already been selected by Mr. Leigh, 
who had begged the pots, kettles, etc., in 
England, was at a place called Wangaroa, forty 
miles away. 

A schooner carried them and their goods to 
Wangaroa Bay. It was a romantic spot. The 
mission house, scarcely yet finished, was in a 
lovely sequestered valley twelve miles from the 
harbor. Pine-clad hills and mountains rose in 
somber majesty behind it, and a winding river, 
the Kaio, added to the freshness and verdure of 



102 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

the delightfule vale. But, alas for their com- 
fort ! it was the rainy season. The roof of the 
mission dwelling was little better than a sieve. 
Mr. Leigh was sick. To keep dry he had slept 
for some time in an empty cask, and he was now 
forced to leave Wangaroa in the schooner which 
had brought Mr. Turner, to seek a passage to 
Van Dieman's Land by the first vessel that 
might touch at the Bay of Islands. But with 
three assistant missionaries, Mr. and Mrs. Tur- 
ner kept up their spirits. After selecting a 
better site for a mission housg, the little band, 
aided by some hired natives, erected a cottage 
with a wooden frame which Turner had brought 
from Sydney. 

This necessary task soon gave our mission- 
aries a taste of the treatment they were likely 
to receive from the savage people they had come 
to teach. The chief, George, pretended to be 
friendly at first. After a few days, however, 
he drove off the native workmen, and said to 
Mr. Turner, 

"That house yoil are building is mine. I 



Among New Zealand Savages. 103 

will knock it down. You missionaries shall go 
away." 

Upon this, three of the dark -eyed, thick-lipped 
natives seized the spades with which the mis- 
sionaries were leveling the ground. The furious 
creatures began to utter loud, savage cries, 
which were kept up for some time by different 
parties, both day and night. One day the chief 
brought Mr. Turner a pig for w^hich he had been 
previously paid ; but he now demanded his pay 
a second time. Mr. Turner, after some delay, 
gave him an iron pot he had asked for. This 
peace-offering, instead of winning, angered him 
still more. He seized an ax and a frying-pan, 
and broke the iron pot in pieces against an anvil. 
Mr. Turner withdrew to a short distance. The 
chief raised his loaded musket and threatened to 
shoot him. God's hand restrained the monster. 
Yet he went near the missionary, half frantic 
with rage, and pushed him violently round, say- 
ing as he did so, 

"You want to make us slaves; we want 
muskets, powder, and tomahawks. You give 



104 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

us nothing but prayers. We don't want to hear 
about Jesus Christ. If you love us, as you say 
you do, give us blankets." 

After this he went to the house, and said to 
Mrs. Turner and a white servant-girl she had 
brought with her : 

" I will kill you as I did the people of the 
"Boyd." 

The " Boyd " was a ship which George and 
his men had once seized by stealth, and whose 
crew they had killed and eaten. The chief's 
threat so frightened the servant-girl that she ran 
screaming toward Mr. Turner. Fearing that his 
wife had been murdered, he hastened to the 
house, where he found her braving the chief 
with undaunted courage. By and by the fury 
of this cruel savage suddenly abated. Then, 
placing his hand upon his breast, he said : 

" When my heart rests here, then I love Mr. 
Turner very much ; but when my heart rises to 
my throat, then I could kill him in a minute." 

This outbreak of the chief's rage made the 
missionaries fully aware that their lives were in 



Among New Zealand Savages 105 

momentary peril. No human help was nigh to 
protect them. But they trusted their Master in 
heaven, and he kept their souls serene and 
peaceful. 

The next morning Mr. Turner was told that 
a neighboring tribe had killed a slave, and were 
about to eat his body. With a courage amount- 
ing to rashness, this heroic man, unarmed and 
unattended, went over the hills and found the 
chiefs sitting near a large fire. When within 
their hearing, he asked : 

" What are you roasting ? " 

Looking somewhat ashamed, they were silent 
while he went to the fire. There, O disgusting 
spectacle ! he saw the slave's body roasting be- 
tween two burning logs. Seeing his disgust, 
the chiefs, said by way of apology, 

" That man was old and troublesome." 

Mr. Turner, aided by his brother missiona- 
ries who had joined him, after much talk, suc- 
ceeded in securing the partly-roasted body and 
putting it under-ground. It was a daring thing 
for him to do, since he was completely in the 



106 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

power of men who had never been controlled 
except by brute force or superstitious fear. 

Refusing to be disheartened by the almost 
daily annoyances and thefts to which they were 
subjected by those ungrateful cannibals, our 
missionaries gave themselves to the study of 
their language. In less than six months they 
were able to teach children some of the sweet 
words of Jesus. Within a year they built two 
Wesleyan chapels with their own hands. They 
were rough buildings, but they sufficed for 
preaching-places and for school-rooms. After 
these were dedicated to the Christ Mr. Turner 
finished his cottage. While moving into it he 
was robbed of a case of carpenter's tools, which, 
after search was made, was found in the hands 
of a chief named Te Puhi and some of his fol- 
lowers. 

Te Puhi, vexed at being caught stealing, led a 
band of armed followers to the old mission house 
the next morning. After yelling fiercely outside, 
they entered the dwelling. One of them seized 
a bundle of linen. Mr. Turner tried to take it 



Among New Zealand Savages. 107 

from him, but was struck on his left arm with 
the flat side of a weapon called a mare. Had 
the savage used its edge the missionary's arm 
would have been broken. Fortunately, the old 
chief, George, in a fit of good nature, came to 
Mr. Turner's relief, and threatened to kill the 
man who had struck him if he did not let the 
missionary alone. Te Puhi's party then left the 
building and went to the newly-finished cottage. 
But Mrs. Turner was there with her servant, and 
she bravely stood at the door and barred them 
out. That was a day of severe trials to the mis- 
sionaries, but their faith kept their hearts strong. 
At evening prayer they thanked God for re- 
straining the savages who, like wild beasts of the 
forest, had thirsted for their blood. They said, 
very firmly : 

" We will trust in our God, and praise his 
name for ever and ever." 

O noble souls! no wonder that one of the 
chiefs of the Wangaroa tribes, speaking to a 
visiting chief of this little missionary band, said : 

" We have tried all we could to make them 



108 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

afraid, but have failed. They are a courageous 
tribe/" 

Yes, they had the sublime courage of Chris- 
tian faith, and among them all not one had a 
braver heart than the gentle wife of Mr. 
Turner. 

For some months after the dedication of the 
chapels they were less annoyed. They had 
good congregations, attentive listeners, numerous 
children in their schools. Still, not one convert 
as yet rewarded their diligent labors. By and 
by a change for the worse came over the spirit 
of those savages. In March, 1825, Ahudu, a 
chief, brought an armed band to the mission 
house, spoke fiercely to Mr. Turner, and bran- 
dished his weapon over him as if intending to cut 
off his head. After a while he and his party 
left, carrying off a favorite young dog. Mis- 
sionary White went after them and recovered it. 
Then Te Puhi, who wanted the dog, set upon 
Mr. White with his spear. Mr. Turner and Mr. 
Hobbs ran to his rescue. Te Puhi then assailed 
Mr. Turner, aiming at his head with his spear. 



Among New Zealaxd Savages. 109 

The missionary received the blow on his left 
arm. The spear broke. Te Puhi thrust the 
longest part of the blunted weapon at Turner's 
side. The good man fell senseless to the ground. 
By this time Ahudu had thrown missionary 
White down near the fence. Both would have 
been murdered in a* few moments if some friendly 
natives had not run up and rescued them. As it 
was, Mr. Turner was thought to be dead when 
borne into his house. Happily he recovered, 
but was so injured by the spear and the shock 
that it was several days before he was able to 
leave his bed. 

About this time a whaling ship, which put in 
at Wangaroa Bay, owing to the incaution of her 
officers, was captured, plundered, and her crew 
mostly killed. This deed of violence quickened 
the passions of the natives into a species of mad- 
ness. It also brought threats of war from a 
powerful chief at the Bay of Islands, who feared 
that captains of other ships, hearing of the sad 
affair, would cease to touch at his port. In that 
case he would be unable to procure muskets and 



110 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

gunpowder in exchange for supplies of food. 
And without fire-arms, he would be unable to 
maintain the superiority of his tribe over other 
tribes. Hence he wished to punish the tribes at 
Wangaroa. 

This threat of war excited the natives greatly. 
They vented their rage on the brave Wesleyan 
missionaries, threatening to seize all their prop- 
erty, and even to kill them. No doubt their 
spite w r as made more bitter by fear that a war- 
ship would be sent from England to punish them 
for their destruction of the whale-ship. Hence 
the situation of the missionaries became des- 
perate, and Mrs. Turner and her maid were 
taken to the " Church Mission," at the Bay of 
Islands. The noble lady went very reluctantly ; 
but her husband and his associates urged her 
going so positively, that she finally consented. 

Tribal wars and rumors of wars followed, but 
were of brief duration. Quiet seemed to settle 
on the Wangaroa tribes once more. Mrs. Turner 
then returned. Missionary w T ork was resumed. 
But in January, 1827, Wangaroa was invaded, 



Among New Zealand Savages. Ill 

the natives fled, the mission premises were 
threatened, and finally assailed by the invaders. 
The contents were ruthlessly seized, and, when 
the savages were actually in their dwelling, the 
missionaries took their departure. As Mrs. 
Turner was in the door-way, a chief raised his 
weapon to cleave her to the ground. At that 
moment some of his followers pushed up a shelf 
over the door-way and caused a lot of nails 
stored upon it to fall in a shower upon the 
head of the chief. This so surprised him that 
his stroke was arrested, and the heroic lady 
escaped. 

Behold this missionary family ! There were 
Mr. and Mrs. Turner, with their three children, 
the youngest a babe only five weeks old ; two 
other missionaries, one of them a lady ; and 
a serving man and his wife. All were loaded 
with bundles of clothing. Their way led across 
grain fields wet with dew. They had to wade 
the little, winding valley stream no less than 
four times. Very soon they met a war party 
which proved friendly, and let them pass on. A 



112 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

second band of warriors seemed disposed to kill 
them, and its chief, pointing to the edge of a 
stream, said, very sternly : 

"Kneel there!" 

This sounded like their death warrant. But 
seeing no way of escape they kneeled down, Mr. 
Turner holding his infant in his arms. Then, 
to their inexpressible relief, the chiefs came 
and rubbed noses with them. This they knew 
to be the symbol of friendship. The chief then 
bade them "Go onward ! " and they moved on 
into the woods. After walking six miles they 
were met by friends from the Bay of Islands. 
By sundown, after a tedious walk of twenty 
miles, they reached the friendly shelter of the 
" Church Mission." They had made a heroic 
effort. Only one convert had been won to 
Christ. Yet their labor was not in vain. 

Before leaving the Bay of Islands for Sydney, 
Australia, Mrs. Turner, notwithstanding the ter- 
rors connected with her flight from Wesley Vale, 
was loth to quit the field. Yearning with desire 
to see the bloodthirsty savages changed into 



Among New Zealand Savages. 113 

meek believers in Christ, and inspired by hero- 
ism never excelled, she often said to her husband, 

" Cannot we remain and prosecute our mission 
somewhere in the land ? " 

This was the language of the heart, and, re- 
garded as an expression of feeling, was both 
beautiful and sublime. But when the possibility 
of the situation was viewed in the light of a 
sober judgment, she saw, as did her husband 
and associates, that it would be the height of 
folly to attempt a new mission until a more 
peaceful spirit should incline those pitiless can- 
nibals to invite their return. 

And they did return, though not immediately. 
After spending six months in Sydney they, w T ith 
several other missionaries, sailed to the Tonga 
Mission in the Society Islands. The Tonguese 
were less savage and warlike than the New Zea- 
landers, but owing to some recent quarrels with 
the Fijians, had become unusually restless and 
unteachable. In this state of mind, they had 
shown such hostilities to the Wesleyan mission- 
aries, had even begun to rob and threaten them 



114 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

so harshly, that when Mr. Turner reached Ton- 
gataboo, he found the mission families busy with 
preparations to abandon the Island. When he 
told these disheartened laborers that he had come 
with two other missionaries and their wives to 
re-enforce the mission, they were greatly aston- 
ished. Their good wives, grown nervous through 
the things they had suffered, when told that 
three missionary sisters with several children 
were in the ship waiting to land, expressed them- 
selves in these emphatic exclamations : 

" It is madness to bring them here, and sub- 
ject them to such trials as we have had to 
endure ! " 

Perhaps it was madness viewed on its human 
side. But, placed in the light of faith and 
duty, it was sublimely heroic. The results 
justified Mr. Turner and his associates. The 
God of missions was on their side, and the next 
few years proved that, as it was with the prophet 
and his servant at Dothan, they who were with 
them were more and mightier than the heathen- 
ish and Satanic forces arrayed against them. 



Among^ New Zealand Savages. 115 

They met with great success in making converts, 
and the spiritual beauty of the mission soon 
became more delightful to the hearts of these 
noble men and women than the rich verdure, 
the Eden-like beauty, and the floral brilliancy of 
the lovely scenery of the Islands were to a mere 
spectator's eye. 

But New Zealand after a few years needed 
Mr. Turner's return. A change had come over 
the spirit of its dreadfully savage people. Other 
Wesleyan missionaries had reaped some fruit 
from the seed sown by the heroic Turner and 
his faithful fellow-laborers. Still the field was 
difficult. A leader of experience was required 
to guide the workers. Turner was therefore se- 
lected to go thither again. It was a great sacri- 
fice of feeling to quit the flourishing societies in 
Tonga and to return to places where he and his 
noble wife had endured so many sore hardships. 
Yet he complained not, because his own sense 
of duty sustained the voices of authority which 
bade him make the change. 

His wise counsels soon restored vigor to the 



116 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

workers in tlie mission. His untiring energy, 
his strong faith, his superior abilities, quickened 
the native churches which he found there. 
There were yet perils to be faced because the 
enemies of the native churches were many, and 
the old cruel war-spirit of the New Zealander re- 
appeared at times in some of the as yet partially 
instructed chiefs who had been baptized. Nev- 
ertheless he toiled bravely on, ever pursuing 
though sometimes faint, until 1839, when, his 
health being impaired by overmuch toil and by 
the climate, he sailed with his family to Sydney, 
Australia. Henceforth his work was among the 
colonists of that thriving land. His death, in 
1864, was more than peaceful ; it was triumphant. 
New Zealand was greatly blessed by the Gos- 
pel, yet many of that warlike race clung to 
its passion for war, first among themselves, and 
then with the European colonists who settled 
there. As the white people increased the dark 
natives diminished. Nevertheless, in the world 
of light, many of the missionary converts are 
doubtless walking in white. 



A Shokt but Beautiful Life. 117 



CHAPTER YIL 

A SHORT BUT BEAUTIFUL LIFE. 

u If now in youth or when the head be hoary, 

Earth's ties are riven, 
I know that sudden death is sudden glory 

To heirs of heaven." 

DURING the session of the Wesleyan Con- 
ference at Bristol, England, in 1838, a 
young man with a figure of almost womanly del- 
icacy rose up, and with very deep feeling, said : 
" I feel clear that in entering on mission work 
I am in the path of duty. As a young man in 
the ministry I have had all my heart could wish ; 
but I feel I must devote myself to the work of 
God in a foreign land. I know what I am 
about. I do not expect to escape hardships, 
privations, and perils. But none of these things 
move me." Then raising his tearful eyes heav- 
enward, he added, with intense emotion : 

Thine I live, thrice happy I, 
Happier still if thine I die." 



118 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

And when the President of the Conference, 
after a brief reply to this address, shook hands 
with this young man and his fellow-missionaries, 
the preachers were so overcome that they wept 
aloud. 

"Why did this unusual flood of feeling sweep 
over that dignified body ? Who was the young 
man whose electric words thrilled them so re- 
markably ? The occasion was the farewell of 
the Conference to a little band of their brethren 
about to depart to their missions in the South 
Pacific Ocean. The young man eloquent was 
Thomas H. Bumby, who, though only thirty 
years old, had given promise of a grand career 
in the home ministry. That such a man should 
turn his back upon the best Wesleyan churches 
in England to spend his life among such barba- 
rians as the New Zealanders, was a spectacle 
which filled them with admiring sympathy. 

As this noble-minded man was unmarried, his 
sister, moved by the same heroic spirit, sailed 
with him, that she might preside over the mis- 
sion house and aid him in his work. After a 



A Short but Beautiful Life. 119 

six-months' voyage lie landed in New Zealand, 
where Mr. Turner and other missionaries greeted 
him gladly. 

Great changes for the better had taken place 
in New Zealand since the heroic Turner had 
been driven from its shores. The good seed 
had, after a long and perilous sowing-time, found 
some good ground in which to take root. And 
on Mr. Bumby's first Sabbath he saw a thousand 
natives gathered at the missionary station, and 
preached in the chapel to an overflowing, serious 
congregation. Surely the Cross had triumphed 
gloriously ! 

There was present that day a native teacher, 
named "William Barton, who some time before 
had been shot at by a party of his countrymen 
he was trying to instruct. Two of his praying 
companions were killed outright, and his own 
blanket was pierced by three bullets. One of 
the murderers was present that day, and when 
William Barton was asked to offer the closing 
prayer after the sermon, he prayed so earnestly, 
so tenderly, for the guilty man, that the congre- 



120 Missionary Heroes and Heroifes. 

gation, so recently won from the savage spirit of 
its ancestry, was deeply moved. To Mr. Bumby 
that sweet prayer for an enemy was like an 
angel's song. It revealed to him the mighty 
power of the truth he had come to preach. 

He was also told of a native class-leader, 
Simon Peter, a chief who had recently died. 
Of this once-dreaded man one of the missionaries 
said to Mr. Bumby : 

" Simon Peter, before his conversion, was a 
terror to his enemies. Having taken some pris- 
oners one day in a battle with a hostile tribe, 
he stopped on his homeward march, made a 
large oven, heated it, bound his captives, cast 
them alive into it, roasted, and then made a 
feast of, their bodies. And yet," added the 
missionary, "after the Gospel had conquered that 
terrible man, I often saw the big, scalding tears 
stream down his tattooed cheeks, while he and 
his fellow-converts were singing hymns about 
the love of Christ." 

Many stories of the power of Christ's love 
over the hearts of cannibals increased Mr. 



A Short but Beautiful Life. 121 

Bumby's faitli in the truth, and gave life to his 
hope that his sacrifices in their behalf would not 
be in vain. 

He soon had occasion to note the quickness of 
the native mind. Mr. Turner introduced him 
to a Christian chief, named Nene, saying, among 
other things, " Mr. Bumby is the father (mean- 
ing the superintendent) of the missionaries." 

Nene, after looking askance at the frail, slen- 
der figure of Mr. Bumby, shrewdly replied: 
" Ah ! it is well : but he a father ! He is but a 
boy ; but perhaps he has the heart of a father." 

Mr. Bumby, being superintendent of the 
mission, and under instructions to visit the 
islands and select suitable sites for new sta- 
tions, soon found that his anticipations of hard- 
ships and perils were not imaginations, but stern 
realities. He had to travel much by water, 
in frail native vessels, on seas that were subject 
to severe storms, and made dangerous by many 
hidden reefs. Besides being cooped up for days 
in these unsafe little barks, he had, on landing, 
to visit the native heathen chiefs, which 



122 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

was often any thing but a safe or pleasant 
task. 

Let us follow him on one of these visits 
The chief is a noted warrior and a man-eater. 
It is his habit to lay his hand upon his stomach 
and say, in a gruff, imperious voice, 

" I am hungry for a man ; go and kill , a 

slave, for me ! " 

The entrance into this chief's house is so low 
and narrow that our missionary has to crawl on 
his hands and knees to pass through it. Once 
inside he finds the air thick with smoke from 
the oil burners which give the room its gloomy 
light. Thirty warriors and slaves lie at full 
length on the floor. The air is so impure Mr. 
Bumby can scarcely breathe. Yet he stays long 
enough to sing a hymn and offer a prayer. The 
next morning this disgusting cannibal visits the 
missionary on his vessel, and to his surprise says 
to him : 

" Send me a missionary, and I will give over 
fighting, and begin with all my people to serve 
God.' 5 



A Short but Beautiful Life. 123 

Besides preaching and teaching, Mr. Bumby 
and his fellow-] aborers often acted as peace- 
makers between hostile tribes not yet converted. 
To do this they often had to make long journeys 
through dense forests, over rugged mountains, 
and across vast swamps, during heavy tropical 
rains and chilling winds. On one peace-making 
expedition they had to spend a week in such 
difficult travel, sleeping on beds of fern, with 
no roof over them but the lofty heaven. This, 
though severe and perilous to life, was the least 
dangerous part of their errand of love. 

Having reached the seat of one of the warlike 
tribes, they found the chiefs sitting in state, 
their persons proudly ornamented with white 
feathers. To the kind words spoken by the 
missionaries, they replied with these stern 
terms : 

" We will resist the attack of our enemies to 
death, to death, to death." 

Presently the messengers of the tribe threat- 
ening war arrived, demanding satisfaction. This 
demand excited them to fierceness. They bran- 



124: Missionary Heeoes and Heeoines. 

dished their spears, yelled, and threw so much 
passion into their faces that they looked more 
like demons than men. Still the missionaries 
pleaded for peace, and at last gained consent to 
go to their coming foes and say to them that, if 
they would discharge their muskets at a distance, 
their enemies would meet them as friends. 

This was one point gained. To make it ef- 
fectual, one of the missionaries walked unarmed 
and alone to face the approaching force. It was 
like bearding death on a field of blood. But his 
trust was in Him who had conquered death. 
The savage chiefs listened to him, and at length 
agreed, for the missionaries' sake, to meet the 
opposite party for a peaceful parley. 

They then marched, with the missionary at 
their head, to a hill opposite their enemies' vil- 
lage. In a valley between them, a white 
handkerchief — the flag of peace- — waved from a 
pole. Mr. Bumby and another missionary stood 
beside it. On either side the savage warriors 
stood, nearly nude, armed and ready for strife. 
The discharge of a single musket, the stepping 



A Short but Beautiful Life. 125 

of a single warrior from either side across the 
line of peace, would have been the signal for 
mutual slaughter, in which the missionaries, 
standing between two fires, must have been the 
first victims. But those heroic servants of the 
Lord Jesus did not falter. With faces un- 
blanched by fear, and tongues made eloquent by 
hearts full of love, they pleaded with the angry 
cannibals until their fury abated ; then they 
agreed to be friends, fired their muskets into 
the air, joined in a war-dance with such frantic 
energy that it made the ground shake beneath 
their feet. The love and heroism of the mis- 
sionaries had won a victory over heathen passion 
which, no doubt, prevented the death of hun- 
dreds, and also the loathsome cannibal feast with 
which the conquering party would have cele- 
brated their victory. 

Besides this blessed work of Christian charity 
the missionaries, by preaching, teaching, and 
distributing the Scriptures and tracts, were con- 
stantly winning disciples for their Lord. In the 
autumn of Mr. Bumby's first year in New Zea- 



126 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

land it was found that over eighteen hundred of 
those cannibals had been transformed into Chris- 
tians during the year. Their hunger for the 
flesh of men had been changed into hunger for 
righteousness. This grand fact more than com- 
pensated those noble men and women for all 
they had done and suffered. Their Lord had 
died for this end, and this was the object of 
their holy ambition. 

The great change wrought in these savages by 
the Gospel was well described by a chief one day, 
who said : 

" Before the missionaries came, we went to all 
parts of the land to kill and devour our country- 
men. My hand was against every man, and 
every man's hand was against me. I delighted 
in the blood of others, and never went forth but 
to scatter, tear, and slay ; but since I have heard 
of Jesus Christ and his Gospel I have desired to 
publish peace, and have gone to different parts 
of the land to persuade people to turn to God." 

O blessed fruit of missionary labor ! It satis- 
fied the heart of the heroic Bumby and of the 



A Short but Beautiful Life. 127 

hundreds of noble-minded men and women who 
gave their lives to save the heathen during the 
heroic age of the modern missionary crusade in 
heathen lands. 

The wife of one of the New Zealand mission- 
aries, while moving from one station to another 
with her husband, in a vessel called the " Tri- 
ton," was taken with mortal sickness. Her 
name was Wilson. 

" Is it well with you ? " one of the mission- 
aries asked her. 

Placid as a lake in the bright calm of a still 
summer's day she replied, firmly, " Yes, it is." 

Then, with closed eyes and feeble hands 
clasped and uplifted, as in prayer, without a 
sigh or groan or struggle, her happy spirit 
soared to the glorious presence-chamber of the 
world's Chief Missionary, the Master of life, the 
everlasting Saviour. They were compelled to 
bury her beneath the waves of the Pacific, from 
whence, in the day of the resurrection, her de- 
cayed body will be raised, changed into a spir- 
itual and ever beautiful form. 



128 Missionary Heroes and Heroines 

One more scene, and that a tragic one, must 
conclude this brief sketch of Mr. Bumby's mis- 
sionary life. We will join him on board a 
native vessel sailing from one station to another. 
Several native converts are with him. It is the 
month of June, the New Zealand winter. The 
weather, though cold, is fine as they start. The 
canoe is overloaded. The crew are careless, and 
in hoisting the sail to catch a breeze which 
springs up, the canoe capsizes. The natives, 
being good swimmers, soon right it, and help 
Mr. Bumby to get in. To make his person 
lighter they cut off most of his outer clothing. 
Shivering with cold, he sits bailing out the 
water with his hands. 

Of course, he now sees himself in peril of 
death. Yet a little caution on the part of the 
natives may save both him and them. Bat they, 
by crowding back into the frail canoe, upset it 
again. One of their number sinking before their 
eyes fills them with panic, and they begin to 
despair. A converted native, James Garland, 
helps Mr. Bumby to get astride the upturned 



A Short but Beautiful Life. 129 

canoe. There he holds him. Seeing nothing 
now but death before him, this delicately formed 
man calmly, solemnly commits his soul to the 
Redeemer. The chilly air almost paralyzes him. 
Presently a swelling wave rolls over the canoe, 
sweeps him from his perilous seat, and he sinks 
in the clear, deep water. Fourteen of the 
others are also drowned. The six who escape 
do so by righting the canoe and rowing to the 
nearest shore. 

This was in June, 1840. Less than two years 
had passed since this splendid, sweet-souled 
preacher's touching farewell to his Conference. 
Little more than a year of complete devotion to 
missionary work was permitted him. Was he 
therefore mistaken in thinking that God had 
called him to it ? Nay, not so. As the martyr's 
death was the seed from which the Christian 
Church grew in the ancient days, so the heroism 
of this beautiful young life, since embalmed in 
many a missionary speech, has been fruitful in 
awakening a kindred spirit in others. His work 
lives also in many a heathen's renewed life. 



130 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

The tidings of Mr. Bumby's death spread a 
cloud of sadness over the spirits of the Wes- 
leyan missionaries in New Zealand. His superb 
pulpit talents had charmed them, his untiring 
zeal, his rare self-denial, his remarkable piety, 
and the uncommon sweetness of his meek temper 
had won their admiration and their love. That 
such a man should die so early, like a bud of 
rarest promise rudely broken from its stem, 
seemed mysterious. Yet, though grieved, they 
did not doubt either the wisdom or goodness 
of Him whose providence had permitted 
him to sink beneath the waters of the 
ocean. They knew that He doeth all things 
well. 

Bat how did Miss Bumby, his sister, bear a 
trial which left her alone in those distant lands ? 
The blow was almost too much for her endur- 
ance. Rumors of some mishap reached her at 
first. Presently a messenger arrived at the 
missionary station. On seeing him, she eagerly 
exclaimed, 

"Do tell me! do tell me!" 



A Short but Beautiful Life. 131 

" Your brother is in heaven, 3 ' her friend re- 
plied, very tenderly. 

A painful pause ensued. Then the particulars 
of the catastrophe was told her. Next — words 
of consolation were gently spoken. She gave 
them what heed she could, but after some hours 
her grief threw her into convulsions. A sleepless 
night succeeded ; and then the peace of Christ 
gained a victory, and her torn heart, though 
still bleeding, felt that holy calm which always 
follows submission to the will of God. 

Had Miss Bumby been less a heroine than she 
was, she would have returned to her native land 
after this great bereavement. But the mission- 
ary mantle of her brother had fallen upon her, 
and she remained in New Zealand to do mission- 
ary work. After a time she married a mission- 
ary, and, as his faithful wife, did more excel- 
lent service in that far off-land. 

Mr. Bumby was the first Wesleyan mission- 
ary who died in New Zealand. His breth- 
ren regarded him as a martyr to the work, 
but were not discouraged. Theirs was the 



132 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

genuine missionary spirit which, like the old 
guard of Napoleon, " does not surrender." It 
was grandly expressed by Mr. Bumby's friend, 
Rev. John Waterhouse, who two years later 
died through exposure while doing missionary 
work. His last words, vehemently uttered, were, 
"Missionaries ! missionaries ! " 



Conquest of Beautiful Tonga. 133 



CHAPTER VIII. 

CONQUEST OF BEAUTIFUL TONGA. 

" Dare all thou canst, 
Be all thou darest, . . . 
Have thy tools ready, God will find the work." 

— Charles Kingsley. 

IN the vast Pacific Ocean there are three 
groups of islands, numbering more than one 
hundred and fifty, called the Tonguese Islands. 
Captain Cook, celebrated as a navigator, named 
them the Friendly Islands, because he found 
their inhabitants less savage than those of New 
Zealand and Fiji. But, though they treated him 
with apparent kindness, they were, like all igno- 
rant heathens, cruel at heart, false, thievish, and 
very vile. 

They showed these bad qualities when, 
in 1797, ten missionary mechanics, sent 
out by the London Missionary Society in the 

" Duff," landed at Tonga, the principal island, 
9 



134 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

and began to preach the Gospel and teach the 
people useful trades. 

At first the natives treated these men very 
kindly, as they did Captain Cook. But after a 
few months the chief who protected them was 
murdered by his own brother. Thereupon war 
broke out. Three of the missionaries were 
killed. The others were robbed of their prop- 
erty, stripped of their clothing, driven from 
their homes, and forced to hide themselves in 
caves among the rocks, and in desolate places. 
Reduced to destitution by this cruel treatment, 
they were glad at length to quit the island in a 
ship whose captain offered to give them a pas- 
sage to New South Wales. Thus, you see, the 
first attempt to lead those Friendly Islanders to 
the Friend of sinners was a failure. 

Yet it was not a final failure. The spirit of 
the persecuted missionaries was not quenched. 
It lived long in the heart of a woman, first the 
wife and then the widow of one of them, named 
Shelley. This good woman spoke so feelingly 
of those islanders to a Wesleyan preacher in 



Conquest of Beautiful Tonga. 135 

New South Wales, named Walter Lawry, that a 
burning desire to visit them was kindled in his 
soul. This desire led him to such efforts that, 
twenty-two years after the enforced departure 
of the first missionaries, he, with his heroic wife 
and some assistants, landed at Tonga, and, after 
a few days, requested the chiefs of the island to 
meet him. 

To this courageous demand seven chiefs re- 
sponded, bringing with them a vast crowd of 
their followers, who formed a circle round the 
undaunted missionary. He told them why he 
had come to Tonga, and asked them if they were 
willing to be taught the religion of Jesus. 

u Yes," they said. "We will treat you well. 

We will send thousands of our children to vour 

«/ 

school." 

As if to prove their sincerity, they next made 
him presents, after the manner of their country. 
The principal chief went so far as to entreat Mr. 
Lawry to build a mission house near his abode. 

This was, indeed, a sunny beginning. But, 
alas! it was only as the morning brightness 



136 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

which is sometimes followed by a noontide 
storm. Those fickle people, after a few short 
months, changed their tone. When they met to 
drink Jcava they talked against the missionaries. 
Said one chief : 

" See, these people are always praying to their 
gods as the other missionaries were, and what 
was the consequence of their praying? Why, 
the war broke out, and all our old chiefs were 
killed." 

Another said : " I had a dream. I saw the 
spirit of an old chief. He was angry because he 
saw the new mission house, and said the Papa- 
langi will pray you all dead." 

These fiery speeches fell upon the people like 
sparks on gunpowder. They set their bad pas- 
sions on fire, and moved them to treat Mr. 
Lawry rudely, to rob him of his goods, and to 
threaten him, saying in his hearing, 

"Make ready! Let us put an end to this 
Papalangi." 

For several months Mr. Lawry stood firmly 
at his post, enduring their ill treatment with 



Conquest of Beautiful Tonga. 137 

patience ; yet knowing, even when they put on 
the mask of friendship, as they did at intervals, 
that the fate of the heroic men, " whose graves 
were before his eyes," might overtake him at 
any hour. And when the health of Mrs. Lawry 
made it necessary for her to leave Tonga, as it 
did after fourteen months of this perilous living, 
our patient missionary left and returned to New 
South Wales. As he was about to enter the 
boat one of the chiefs said, with seeming sin- 
cerity : 

"We thank you for your visit. We hope 
you w T ill soon come back." 

Mr. Lawry carried away two impressions 
from Tonga : first, that its scenery was so rich 
in beautiful trees and flowers, and so flooded 
with soft sunshine, as to seem more like one's 
dreams of fairy-land than a part of the solid 
earth ; and second, that its natives, though less 
ferocious than their neighbors of Fiji, were a 
vile people living in " islands of peerless loveli- 
ness." Nevertheless he pitied them, and, dis- 
couraging as the prospect of their conversion 



138 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

seemed, so represented their case that, in 1826, 
two other Wesleyan missionaries, named Thomas 
and Hutchinson, landed at Tonga, and fixed 
their residence at Hihifo. At that time, out of 
some fifty thousand souls on the islands, not one 
was found who had ceased to worship the idols 
of his ancestors. 

With their habitual cunning, the chiefs pre- 
tended to give Mr. Thomas a cordial welcome. 
But he soon found that it was not the mission- 
aries, but their property, they desired. Ata, 
the chief, soon withdrew his protection. Then 
men, and even boys, insulted them, robbed 
them, and threatened to kill them. 

" They keep boxes of spirits, (spiritual beings,) 
brought on purpose to eat up the Tonga people," 
said one of their speakers at a native council. 

The chief laughed at this theory. Yet he 
soon took occasion to disturb the missionaries, 
driving them from the mission house, and 
threatening to kill them. He also forbade his 
people to go to their meetings. He broke 
up their school, and told them he would not 



Conquest of Beautiful Tonga. 139 

suffer tliem to buy any thing of the natives. 
And when a loug season of dry weather led 
them to expect a famine he joined in the pop- 
ular cry which said : 

"The Tonga and English gods have had a 
quarrel about these missionaries. The Tonga 
gods are the stronger and are punishing us." 

The missionaries were perplexed, even dis- 
couraged, seeing nothing but violent death 
before them. In their extremity they wrote to 
the Wesleyan authorities in Sydney to send a 
vessel to take them away from their seemingly 
hopeless field. 

Instead of yielding to this despondent, though 
by no means blameworthy, wish, the Committee 
sent them Messrs. Turner, Weiss, and Cross to 
re-enforce them. They were both surprised 
and comforted to see these noble helpers. Their 
hopes revived. A beam of light shone just at 
that time from a native village, named Nukua- 
lofa, where two Christian natives of Tahiti, 
while on their way to Fiji, had stopped, and 
had begun teaching the people. These men 



140 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

could not speak in the Tonga tongue, yet tlieir 
spirit had so attracted the people at Nukualofa, 
that they began to inquire about Jesus and walk 
to Hihifo, a distance of twelve miles, to hear 
the Wesleyan missionaries preach in their own 
language, either directly or through an inter- 
preter. 

Guided by this beam of promise, Messrs. 
Turner and Cross went on to Nukualofa. Nor 
did they go thither in vain. They soon had 
flourishing schools, large congregations, and 
some serious inquirers, but as yet no real con- 
verts. 

Nor was their peril wholly ended, as Mr. 
Turner and his brethren found one day, when 
going to witness the ceremonies of a great 
native feast. To get a good view of their 
sports the missionaries stepped on a mound. 
A native said : 

" That is a burial place. The spot is sacred. 
You must leave it." 

They moved away to a low tree and took 
seats on its lower branch. The limb broke and 



Conquest of Beautiful Tonga. 141 

they fell. Instantly the club of an angry native 
was lifjted over Mr. Turner's head, while he was 
yet on the ground. Had the threatened blow 
been given he would have been a dead man. 
But the hand of the Unseen One restrained the 
arm of the heathen, and the missionary was 
saved. He soon learned that the fierce act of 
the savage was caused by his belief that the 
gods were in the toa tree. Fortunately for him, 
the chief, Tubou, instead of sharing the anger of 
a man who was the subject of another chief, 
was enraged with him because he had dared to 
threaten the life of a man whom he had prom- 
ised to protect. But when he made a threat of 
war on the man's tribe unless his chief sued for 
mercy, the missionaries interfered as peace- 
makers. It was a critical moment. On the 
result the fate o£ the mission probably depended. 
Happily the spirit of peace prevailed. The 
offending tribe sued for mercy, Tubou relented, 
and the mission lived to become a marvelous 
success. 

Tubou's friendship for the missionaries soon 



142 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

gave offense to the other chiefs. They threat- 
ened to make war upon him unless he ceased 
to approve them. To prevent this the chief 
prepared to leave Tonga, and go with his people 
to another island. Had he done so the mis- 
sionaries would have been obliged to go with 
him, since to remain would have been cer- 
tain death. But he finally resolved to stay 
when the other chiefs, unwilling to lose him, 
offered to acknowledge him as king of all Tonga. 
In this they showed their cunning, since they 
believed that through their submission they could 
persuade him to turn against the missionaries. 
A vile hope which, for a time, gave promise of 
being fulfilled. 

The heroic missionary band did not quail in 
presence of further opposition and persecution. 
Faith in Christ kept their hearts strong. Love 
for souls bound them to the poor people they 
longed to save. They began to receive their 
reward when, in 1828, they formed ten seekers 
into the first Methodist class in Tonga, and 
when, shortly after, a young chief of the highest 



Conquest of Beautiful Tonga. 143 

rank, having found peace through believing, 
was baptized on his death-bed and died a sweetly 
Christian death. Hundreds of natives also at- 
tended their meetings, and on several of the 
islands the people grew so serious and attentive 
that the missionaries rejoiced in hope of brighter 
days and greater success. 

Yet their hour of complete triumph had not 
fully come. Ata, a chief, was still violent at 
times. One day he told Mr. Thomas that he 
must quit Hihifo. 

"I shall not leave," replied the courageous 
man of God, firmly. 

"Do you not fear me?" cried the fiery chief, 
with fury flashing from his eyes. 

u ]q- j » replied Mr. Thomas, very calmly. 
" I do not fear you. I fear no one but God." 

Ata, if not awed by this display of Christian 
courage, was siJenced, and the missionaries 
remained at their post. 

The seed sown in tears now began to spring 
up, promising a joyful harvest. Converts began 
to multiply. Early in 1830 Tubou, king of 



144 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

Tonga, stood beside Mr. Turner's pulpit, his 
manly person neatly dressed in native cloth. 
With a calm countenance and cheerful voice he 
said to the crowded assembly : 

" The gods of Tonga are vanity and lies. I 
renounce them. I have cast away all that I 
know to be wicked. Jehovah is now my God. 
Jesus is my only Saviour. I this day offer my- 
self, my wife, my children, unto the Lord. I 
beg you to follow my example, and attend to 
the things of God." 

He then kneeled down, and was baptized by 
the name of Josiah. After the ceremony he 
presented his three sons and his daughter to be 
baptized. In the afternoon of that memorable 
Sabbath, the greatest priest in Tonga, to whom 
King Tubou had often prayed as his god, also 
received baptism. Thus both this royal chief 
and his god were taken into the Church the 
same day. O, wonderful victory of the cross ! 
O happy, honored missionaries, reaping in joy 
where they had so often sowed with tears ! 

The tide had now turned, Opposers were 



Conquest of Beautiful Tonga. 145 

still found, but the hand of the Mighty One sent 
showers of blessings on most of the islands. 
There was a great turning unto the Lord. And 
the reality of their conversion was proved by 
the change which took place in their once 
wicked lives. They ceased to tell lies, to steal, 
to fight, to be impure, to worship idols. One 
chief hung his most splendid idols by the neck 
in their former temple. The missionary asked 
him : 

"Why did you hang your idols in the 
temple ? " 

"I hung them there to show all the 
people that they be dead," was his sensible 
reply. 

" Will you give me one of them ? " said the 
missionary. 

" Yes ; they are of no use to me." 

Now, do you wonder that Mr. Turner, after 
seeing these wonders of grace, wrote in a joy- 
ous spirit : 

"I now thank God for bringing me to 
see his glory here. O what I have seen ! 



146 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

Hundreds converted from dumb idols to serve 
the living God." 

A little later lie might have written thousands 
instead of hundreds, since, in six years subse- 
quent to the arrival of Mr. Thomas, more than 
eight thousand heathens had become Christians. 
To-day the Tonga islanders are no longer 
heathens, but a Christian people. Behold! 
what hath God wrought ! 



A Lovely and Heroic Lady. 147 



CHAPTER IX. 

A LOYELY AND HEROIC LADY. 

" It is not they who idly dwell 
In cloister grey and hermit's cell, 
In prayer and vigil night and day 
Wearing all their lives away, 

Lord of heaven, that serve thee well." 

A BRIDAL party in Aberdeen, Scotland, a 
few hours after the marriage ceremony, 
was notified that the hour had arrived for 
the bride and bridegroom to leave the home 
of the bride's mother. The bride was a lovely, 
cultivated lady of twenty-three. Though in 
good health, she had found herself scarcely able 
to stand during the marriage service ; and now 
that she was summoned to quit the house of her 
youth, she clung to her weeping mother's em- 
braces with such an unrelaxing grasp that she 
was literally torn from her arms and borne to 
the carriage at the door. 



148 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

What did this violent grief import? Was 
she an unwilling bride? By no means. She 
had married the man she had long loved. 
Wherefore, then, was she apparently so loth to 
go with him to her destined home ? Strange as 
it may appear to you, she was more than will- 
ing, she was even glad, to go with her husband, 
but she was overcome by the depth of her 
affection for her mother, to whom she felt that 
she was bidding a final and earthly farewell. 

But why was that parting likely to be final ? 
Simply for the reason that the man she had 
married was about to take her with him across 
the almost immeasurable seas to the Friendly 
Islands, whither he was going as a Wesleyan 
missionary. She had joyfully consented to 
become this young missionary's bride. Her 
mother had smiled upon her purpose to go to 
those heathen isles, saying, though with stream- 
ing eyes, " Go ; and may the Almighty go with 
you." Yet when the dreaded parting moment 
came, their mutual affection almost forbade what 
their consciences, their wills, their devotion to 



A Lovely and Heroic Lady. 119 

Christ moved them to do. The struggle was 
severe ; but it was a voluntary sacrifice. After 
they were parted the bride's heroic devotion to 
the Christ she loved, and her desire to win the 
heathen of those distant Pacific Islands to his 
service, calmed her feelings and enabled her to 
face the discomforts and perils of the long 
tedious voyage with cheerfulness and hope. 

This heroic lady's name was now Margaret 
Cargill. She and her husband sailed from 
England in October, 1832. After some deten- 
tion in New South "Wales, through her illness, 
they reached their appointed field of labor in 
Tonga, in January, 1834. Other Wesleyan mis- 
sionaries had been there for several years. They 
found the good seed springing up beautifully in 
most of those lovely isles, and the native con- 
verts greeted their arrival with words of love 
and deeds of kindness. Said one, "It is well 
you have sailed toward this place," and his 
words expressed the welcome given them by 
many others. 

With happy hearts this devoted pair entered 
10 



150 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

with affectionate zeal on the work before them, 
which, however, was not without its trials, hard- 
ships, and dangers. Mr. Cargill had to make 
perilous trips from one island to another in 
frail canoes, over seas which were often rough. 
The natives were not all Christians, and some 
of them were at times troublesome. Yet so 
mightily did the Holy Spirit work with the 
word preached, that our missionaries and their 
associates joyfully reaped a rich harvest of 
souls. They soon witnessed the conversion of 
hundreds, most of whom could say, as one did 
in a love-feast : "-I am very happy to-day. My 
mind is full of the love of the Lord. I love him 
because of his love to me in pardoning my sins ; " 
or, as another of these converts said, " The 
Spirit of the Lord operates within me like fire, 
and my mind is thereby warm." Such con- 
fessions of faith heard amid revival scenes 
which were like Pentecost in power, were es- 
teemed a rich reward for all their discomforts 
by this truly noble and devoted pair. 

But scarcely a year had passed before their 



A Lovely and Heroic Lady. 151 

missionary zeal and Church loyalty were put to 
a very severe test. The " District Meeting/ 5 
held at the close of the year, appointed Mr. 
Cargill and a colleague, named Cross, to open a 
mission in Fiji. This was, indeed, a call to do 
heroic work. The Fijians were still savages, 
cannibals, warriors, as debased a people as could 
be found in any of the Polynesian islands. Not 
many weeks had passed since our missionaries 
had been told the particulars of a horrid feast 
at which two hundred men and one hundred 
women were slaughtered, cooked, and eaten in 
one of the Fiji Islands ! They knew that many 
white men had been killed and eaten by those 
barbarians, that women and children were quite 
commonly murdered and eaten as delicacies by 
the cruel chieftains of those islands, so beautiful 
in their landscapes, so rich in fruits and flowers, 
yet inhabited by some three hundred thousand 
of the vilest specimens of the human race. 
They had been given to expect that Tonga was 
to be their field of labor for many years. Tet 
unexpectedly, suddenly, without previous inti- 



152 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

mations, the authorities of the mission had said 
to them, " You must go to Fiji ! " No doubt 
this appointment was a compliment to Mr. Car- 
gill's ability. It expressed the estimation in 
which his power to do missionary work was held 
by the District Meeting. Nevertheless it was a 
sore test of their loyalty. 

How did the delicate and graceful Mrs. Car- 
gill receive it? No doubt it startled her, 
disappointed her, awakened her womanly fears. 
But her meek reply to her husband when he 
told her of it is worthy to be written in let- 
ters of gold. "Without one resentful word she 
said : 

" Well, David, I did not expect it to be so ; 
but the Lord knows what is good for us. If it be 
his will that we should go to Fiji, I am content." 

O faithful wife ! O trusting believer ! O 
heroic soul ! She saw God's providence in the 
action of the Church authorities ; she submitted 
to his will ; she was content to suffer in Fiji if 
he required it. She was a Christian heroine of 
the noblest order. 



A Lovely and Heroic Lady. 153 

The day of Mr. and Mrs. CargilPs departure 
from Tonga was one of grief to the people with 
whom they had labored so lovingly and suc- 
cessfully. In great numbers they gathered on 
the shore to bid them farewell. They wept, 
they rent the air with loud cries of sorrow. 
The general feeling was voiced by many who 
said, 

" We shall never forget your love to us, nor 
shall we cease to love and pray for you." 

It was hard for this brave little missionary 
band, consisting of Messrs. Cargill and Cross, 
with their families, to sail away from such 
affectionate souls, and to look forward to their 
meeting with the savages of Fiji, who were 
more likely to kill than to receive them kindly. 
But they trusted in God, as the stripling David 
did when he went forth to contend with the 
gigantic Goliath. In due time the little schooner 
which bore them approached the island of La- 
kemba ; but her captain dared not run her inside 
the reefs which surrounded it until he knew 
whether the Fijians would treat him and these 



154 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

missionaries as foes or friends. To settle this 
question Mr. Cargill and his colleague, Mr. 
Cross, heroically said, 

" Send us ashore in your boat. We will go 
and see the island chief." 

The boat was lowered. The two brave mis- 
sionaries stepped on board. With no little peril 
the boat's crew rowed her through a surf -beaten 
channel in the reef. As she neared the beach, 
some two hundred natives, mostly men armed 
with muskets, spears, clubs, bows and arrows, 
stood on the shore. They were nearly nude. 
Their faces were painted, some with jet black, 
others with red. They gazed with silent aston- 
ishment at their visitors, but made no sign 
either of violence or fear. It required even a 
loftier courage for two unarmed men to land in 
face of such grim warriors than for a troop of 
trained soldiers to mount a breach. But these 
good men's souls were filled with the courage 
of a lofty faith. They went calmly ashore with 
a native Fijian, whom they had brought with 
them from the Friendly Islands to act as their 



A Lovely and Heroic Lady. 155 

interpreter. Speaking first in their own tongue, 
they said to those barbarians : 

" We are friends. We love you." 

Those frowning cannibals made no reply ; but 
very soon one of their number said through 
their interpreter : 

" The king is waiting in a house near by. He 
wants to know who you are and what you 
want." 

"We wish to see him," the missionaries 
replied. 

On receiving this message the king went into 
his fortified house. The missionaries were con- 
ducted into his presence. They found him to 
be a very fat man six feet high. They explained 
the object of their visit, and were greatly en- 
couraged when the natives, who crowded the 
audience-room of this barbarian king, clapped 
their hands with one accord as the sign of wel- 
come to the missionaries. The chief was equally 
friendly. He asked many questions, and finally 
said : 

" I will give you land. I will build you 



156 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

houses. I will protect yon. I will listen to 
your instructions." 

This was a welcome more cordial then they 
had dared to expect. Their hearts leaped with 
gratitude to the God of missionaries. They 
hastened back to their vessel outside the reef to 
carry the good news to their wives and friends 
who were waiting with an anxiety that can be 
imagined but not described. 

That same afternoon these noble men, with 
their brave wives and confiding children, landed, 
and were permitted, at their own request, to use 
the royal canoe-house on the beach as their 
lodging. The large canoe it sheltered they 
used for a bedstead, spreading mattresses on its 
deck. 

The lynx-eyed natives watched them through 
every opening while daylight lasted. When 
darkness shut them in they tried to sleep ; but 
myriads of mosquitoes made their first night 
in Fiji one of restlessness and suffering. Nev- 
ertheless, they were comforted by the hope 
that they should be their Master's instruments 



A Lovely and Heroic Lady. 157 

for transforming tlie cannibals around them 
into his pure, peace-loving disciples. 

Finding that many of the natives could under- 
stand the Tonguese language, which these mis- 
sionaries had already acquired, they were able 
to preach to such at once, and while they were 
learning that Fijian dialect, Mrs. Oargill soon 
interested many of the women and children of 
Lakemba in the words of Christ. They 
speedily learned to love her; and such was 
her sweetness of speech and manner that all 
the natives who became acquainted with her 
soon fell into the habit of saying, when any 
one spoke of her, 

" Mrs. Cargill is a lady of a loving spirit." 
Their first converts were won within a month 
after landing. They were not Fijians, however, 
but people from Tonga living among them, 
and who had been taught the Gospel by Wes- 
leyan missionaries in their native isles. Yet 
their conversion led the people of Lakemba, 
especially their chief, to think seriously of the 
Gospel. But when a very destructive hurricane 



158 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

swept over the island, they were. at first inclined 
to believe their priests, who said : 

" The god of Lakemba is angry because the 
missionaries are allowed to teach on his island. 
He has, therefore, called all the gods of Fiji to 
help him. They mean to send ten storms to 
punish you." 

But the king replied : " If the missionaries be 
the object of the god's anger, why does • he 
punish us who have not left his service ? " 

Finding the priest made no response to this 
shrewd question, the chief grew bolder, and 
said : 

" Tuilakemba is either a lying or a foolish 
god." 

This sprightly chief was right. The god of 
his long-deluded people was both false and fool- 
ish, and his power was about to be taken away 
from him. In about five years after Messrs. 
Cargill and Cross began their labors in Lakemba 
there were over five hundred converts in the 
Wesleyan societies among the Fiji Islands. 
Besides these, there was not less than a thousand 



A Lovely and Heroic Lady. 159 

who had ceased to be heathens. These were not 
all won to the truth by those first missionaries, 
since others had been sent to aid them. But 
they were the first seed-sowers in those terrible 
cannibal islands. To-day there are more than a 
hundred thousand souls in Fiji who bow the 
knee with grateful love before the cross of Je- 
sus, their beloved Lord. Both idolatry and can- 
nibalism have fallen before the Gospel of love. 

But the heroine of this sketch was only per- 
mitted to see the first-fruits of this truly 
wonderful harvest. On June 2, 1840, when 
only thirty-one years of age, she slept the sleep 
of the just in the island of Eewa, Fiji. 

She loved life not so much for its own sake 
as because she loved the people of those sin- 
cursed islands. To her children and her hus- 
band she was bound by the ties of a love 
as pure and strong as ever swelled the heart 
of woman. Yet when Death came, she met 
him with the same submissive courage as she 
had always shown in obeying the voices of duty. 
Seeing her husband weep, she said : 



160 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

" Come near me, David, that I may bless you 
before I die." He approached her. She 
threw her arms about his neck, kissed him, 
and added, "May my love be with you, and 
may the love of God fill you now and forever ?" 

When her end was near her husband asked, 
" Are you really going to leave me, Margaret ? " 

"Jesus bids me come," was her sweet re- 
sponse, and, filled with joy, she did her Lord's 
bidding. 

One of the Fijian chiefs, when viewing her 
dead body, said : " She is like herself, and ap- 
pears to be asleep. There lies a lady who was 
never angry with us, and who always smiled 
when we entered her house." 

This, from a man who was not a Christian, 
but often a persecutor, was an expressive com- 
pliment to the sweet gentleness, the womanly 
heroism, of this devoted missionary. But she 
heard it not, for she was gone to the audience- 
chamber of the King of kings, to be greeted 
with his smile, and crowned with the beauty of 
the life eternal. 



Goikg to "Ceylojs's Isle." 161 



CHAPTER X. 

GOING TO « CEYLON'S ISLE." 

11 Still shines the light of holy lives 

Like star beams over doubt ; 
Each sainted memory, Christ-like, drives 

Some dark possession out." — Whittier. 

DR. THOMAS COKE is not unfitly called 
" the father of Wesleyan foreign missions." 
He richly merited this most honorable title. It 
was he who kindled that glorious devotion to 
mission work by which our British Methodism 
has achieved its brilliant deeds for the Christ 
in every quarter of the globe. But it was the 
spirit of Christ who gave Coke the inspiration — 
the true missionary spirit — by which he stirred 
the hearts of his brethren. 

That you may gain a faint idea of that spirit- 
listen to a remark he made one day while travel, 
ing in a coach with a young missionary named 
Clough, who was about to sail with him to Cey- 



162 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

Ion and India. During a lull in their conversa- 
tion the missionary handed him a paper con- 
taining some matter of public interest. Coke, 
perceiving at a glance that it did not relate to 
their proposed work, returned it with this mem- 
orable confession : 

" I beg your pardon, but excuse me ; / am 
dead to all tilings hut Asia." 

The men who lift the world out of darkness 
into light all have this spirit. To them, as with 
this missionary doctor, the work they are about 
to undertake is the principal object of thought, 
conversation, action, and desire. It possesses 
them. 

John "Wesley had talked with Dr. Coke about 
a mission to Asia thirty years before the lat- 
ter made that memorable remark. The spark 
kindled by that conversation had never died out 
of the doctor's great heart. Busy as he was 
with missionary cares in the West Indies and in 
North America, he cherished the hope of plant- 
ing Methodism in Asia, and improved every 
opportunity to gather information about its 



Going to " Ceylon's Isle.' 5 163 

millions of blinded inhabitants until, in 1813, 
the hour for action arrived. He pleaded with 
the British Conference, weeping while he spoke ; 
he pledged the money needed to start a mission 
in Ceylon ; he proposed to begin the work in 
person ; he succeeded in securing six men to 
accompany him ; and was filled with a joy al- 
most seraphic when, in December, 1813, he met 
all his fellow-laborers around a supper-table in 
Portsmouth, England, where they had assem- 
bled for the purpose of taking ship. Rising 
from his chair, he joyously exclaimed : 

"Here we all are before God; six mission- 
aries and two dear sisters, now embarked in the 
most important and glorious work in the world ! 
Glory be to his blessed name, that he has given 
you to be my companions and assistants in car- 
rying the Gospel to the poor Asiatics ! " 

The well-spring of this unselfish exultation 
was the love of Christ, filling his heart and 
overflowing in self-sacrificing love for miserable 
souls who were to be made happy by that same 
heavenly love. The missionary spirit is love. 



164 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

This band of genuine crusaders sailed from 
Portsmouth in two vessels, neither having 
sufficient comfortable accommodations for all. 
The first part of their voyage was auspicious ; 
but when the ships neared the equator, Mrs. 
Ault, wife of one of the missionaries, passed 
into the bright world of the glorified. Her 
death made them sad. Three others of this 
devoted band suffered from severe sickness; 
but on the morning of the third of May they 
were all overwhelmed by a catastrophe. Doctor 
Coke was found by his servant, early that morn- 
ing, lying dead on his cabin floor ! His right 
cheek bore the stain of blood which had flowed 
from his mouth ; his head was slightly turned 
to one side, but a placid smile rested on his 
countenance. The ship's surgeon judged that 
he must have arisen early in the night, either to 
call a servant or get something from the locker, 
and that, while crossing the cabin floor, a stroke 
of apoplexy deprived him of life in an instant. 
His work was done, and that sudden stroke was 
the swift but gentle messenger by which his 



Going to " Ceylon's Isle." 165 

Lord sent to call him from the work he loved on 
earth to engage in still nobler service in the 
kingdom eternal. 

To the little missionary band of which he was 
the chief his sudden departure was a stunning 
blow. He was their official leader; they had 
leaned upon him as their father in the work that 
lay before them. His great reputation, his high 
character, his practical wisdom, his long ex- 
perience, his official relations to their Confer- 
ence, his personal influence, and his pecuniary 
resources, had operated as antidotes to every 
fear of failure in Ceylon and India which had 
arisen in their hearts when they looked on the 
human side of their vocation. With such a 
guide and God's blessing, there could be, they 
had thought, no chance of failure. But his 
death had broken their human stay and staff. 
It had even beggared them, for they were poor 
men and their dead chief was their treasurer. 
His sudden death had given him no opportunity 
to convey to them a legal right to use the money 

which he had provided for their use from his 
11 



166 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

own funds. The prospect of entering a strange 
land without money or friends was indeed dark. 
You cannot wonder, therefore, that when the 
party came together from both ships, which had 
not parted company, and joined in the ceremony 
which preceded the burial of his body in the 
great wide sea, they, like children bereaved of 
a beloved father, trembled with apprehension 
respecting the future. But they had faith in 
God; trusting in him their hearts soon found 
consolation, hope, and courage. O, the blessed- 
ness of faith in God ! 

Twenty weeks after leaving England these 
six missionaries, and the wife of one of them, 
landed in Bombay, India. So poor were they 
that they had not cash enough to pay for a 
single meal ! What a trial of faith ! But the 
God of missions had not forgotten these noble 
souls who were seeking to do his work. He had 
put it into the heart of Captain Birch, com- 
mander of the ship in which Dr. Coke died, to 
help them. That Christian sailor told their 
singular story to a Christian merchant named 



Going to " Ceylon's Isle." 167 

Money, to whose address a letter was found 
among Dr. Coke's papers. And when one of 
the missionaries, named Harvard, called on him, 
with anxious heart and a clouded countenance, 
this noble merchant hastened to comfort him, by 
saying : 

"I am acquainted with your situation. I 
shall be very happy to advance you money on 
the credit of your society at home." 

Thus did the light from their glorified Mas- 
ter's face break forth upon them through the 
dark cloud which had risen from the mysterious 
removal of their trusted leader. Nor was this 
merchant the only friend He gave them in 
Bombay. Sir Evan Nepean, Governor of Bom- 
bay, who, when a boy, had heard Wesley preach, 
gave them the use of his own house during 
their stay. Some American missionaries visited 
them. The sympathies of many gentlemen 
were drawn toward them. After all their pain- 
ful anxieties they suffered no actual want, and 
in due time were enabled to obtain a passage to 
Ceylon, Mr. Harvard remaining in Bombay on 



168 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

account of his wife, who was too feeble at that 
time to take another voyage. 

Letters from the friendly merchant and from 
Governor Nepean to Lord Molesworth, com- 
mander of the British forces at Galle, Ceylon, 
had prepared that gentleman and his most excel- 
lent lady to give our missionaries a very cordial 
reception. Being disciples of Jesus, with large, 
liberal views, this noble pair did every thing in 
their power to help them begin their Christian 
work. Not the least of his favors was his offer 
to give them the superintendence of the public 
schools, with salaries, at the stations they might 
choose to occupy. This offer they gladly ac- 
cepted, and, after selecting suitable points, they 
separated and entered on their work at Jaffna, 
Matura, and Batticaloa. One of their number, 
Mr. Clough, remaining to do mission work at 
Galle. 

If the sudden death of their great leader had 
tempted these sorely tried men to doubt God's 
approval of their work, their reception in Ceylon 
speedily dissolved that temptation. At every 



Going to "Ceylon's Isle." 169 

place they were greeted most cordially, not only 
by officers of government, but also by foreign 
and native merchants, and by religious men 
among the soldiers. Episcopalians, Baptists, 
and even Catholics, wished them Godspeed. 
Ceylon became to them a field ripe for the har- 
vest. Hence, with genuine Methodistic zeal, 
they began teaching the young, preaching to 
English-speaking people, of whom they found 
many, studying the native languages, and, after 
a brief space, preaching to the natives through 
interpreters, and finally in their own tongues. 

A few months after their arrival Mr. Clough 
tecame God's instrument in bringing a learned 
and distinguished Buddhist priest to the knowl- 
edge of his Son. His name was Petrus Pan- 
ditti Sekara. He was a preacher of the faith 
of his ancestors. But, while studying that faith, 
his heart rebelled against it, because, as he said, 
he " found in that religion no Redeemer to save 
our souls from death, no Creator of the world, 
or a beginning to it." While troubled about 
this lack in his creed, he met with our mission- 



170 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

ary, Clough. This gentleman talked with him 
about Jesus, and gave him a copy of the Gospels 
in the Singalese tongue. After much reading 
of these sacred books, and many conversations 
with Mr. Clough, this determined man said : 

" I will abjure the religion of Buddha ; I 
will embrace the religion of Christ ! " 

His fellow-priests, hearing of his purpose, 
made great efforts to persuade him to change his 
purpose. Fifty-seven head priests reasoned with 
him. " You will ruin our religion in this country 
if you forsake the priesthood," said they. His 
family also entreated him, with tears, not to dis- 
grace them. Some of them said, " We will kill 
ourselves if you do." His life was threatened, 
and he was forced to flee from his temple to es- 
cape death. But the heroic man stood firm, as 
a deeply-rooted rock. To become a Christian 
was to forfeit office, property, and old friends ; 
nevertheless, he had the courage to request Mr. 
Clough to baptize him. A day or two before 
this beautiful rite was administered he said to his 
spiritual father : 



Going to " Ceylon's Isle.'* 171 

"I dreamed last night that my robes were 
covered with all kinds of filthy reptiles. I was 
so disgusted that I went to a river and cast them 
in, never to touch them again. When I awoke 
this morning I found my robes folded up and 
thrown on the far side of the room. Now, 
thought I, God has sent me this dream to show 
me the bad state I am in, and to confirm me in 
all my former resolutions. I am only sorry 
that I am forced to put the robes on again." 

A few days later he threw away his yellow 
priestly robes, and professed himself a disciple 
of Christ by being publicly baptized. He sup- 
posed he was forsaking all by that act. But 
God provided for him through the governor, 
who appointed him translator to the govern- 
ment, with a fixed salary. His conversion 
shook the faith of many in Buddhism, and pre- 
pared the way for that remarkable success which 
afterward crowned the labors of the Wesleyan 
missionaries. 

The climate of Ceylon, with steady and hard 
work, brought debility and sickness to several of 



172 Missionary Heeoes and Heroines. 

those heroic men. To Mr. Ault it brought 
death. His trip from Galle to Batticaloa was 
made by water in a wretched barge. During 
the rough passage he was much exposed and 
narrowly escaped a watery grave. His grief on 
account of the death of his beloved wife on the 
voyage from England still preyed on his spirits. 
His zeal in his work completed what grief and 
exposure had begun. On the first of April, 
1815, with no European near him, he asked his 
Malabar servant to read him a chapter from Holy 
Scripture. The man obeyed. "When he finished 
Mr. Ault made a few brief remarks upon it, 
turned in his bed, and quietly passed from the 
field of his missionary labors to the throne of 
the Lord of missions. His missionary life was 
short, but it left a lasting impression of the 
beauty of a Christian life on the minds of the 
people who witnessed his purity and loving 
zeal. 

Our missionaries were not content with 
preaching and teaching only, but sought every 
opportunity to converse with the natives about 



Going to l Ceylon's Isle." 173 

Jesus. Among their visitors at Colombo, for 
such conversation, was a priest known as the 
Ava Priest This man drove a splendid 
equipage. In appearance he was very dignified. 
In mind he was acute and thoughtful. In 
scholarship he was learned, not only in the writ- 
ings of his religion, but also in general literature 
and science. The natives w^ere proud of his 
reputation, and very highly respected his 
character. 

This man met Messrs. Clough and Harvard 
every day for several weeks, disputing against 
their doctrines. At first he was very bitter 
against the truth. After some time a change 
passed over his spirit. Silenced in argument he 
listened to the truth with the docility of a little 
child. Then the Holy Spirit convinced him of 
sin, and he began to pray, first for wisdom, then 
for mercy. To prove his sincerity he permitted 
Mr. Harvard to preach Jesus at the door of a 
Buddhist temple, in front of a great idol, to a 
large assembly of priests and people. The text 
of the sermon was, " We know that an idol is 



174 Mission art Heroes and Heroines. 

nothing in the world, and that there is none 
other God but one." 

This Ava Priest became a converted man, 
was publicly baptized by the name of George 
Nadoris de Silva, became an eloquent preacher 
of the truth, and did eminent service against 
the false religion in which he had been trained. 

Methodism soon grew into strength in 
Ceylon. Hundreds of the heathen natives were 
converted ; thousands of heathen children were 
taught the truth which set them free from the 
chains of their ancient religion ; and vast num- 
bers of the nominal Christians found by our 
missionaries in Ceylon were led to exchange 
their dead faith for a living trust in Him, who, 
though once crucified, now liveth for evermore. 
Thus did this misssion, so imperiled at first by 
the sudden death of Dr. Coke, become a thing 
of power. Perhaps Coke's mysterious death 
so drew out the powers of these six young men 
who leaned upon him, that they accomplished 
vastly more than if he had lived to think and 
plan and act in their behalf. Who knows ? 



The Grave-yard of Missionaries. 175 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE GRAVE-YARD OF MISSIONARIES. 

" Each one performs his life-work and then leaves it : 
Those that come after him will estimate 
His influence on the age in which he lived/' 

— Longfellow. 

THE Dark Continent named Africa has, on 
its western coast, a colony called Sierra 
Leone, which owes it origin to a settlement of 
colored men who joined the British army during 
our Revolutionary War, and were taken to Eng- 
land with that army when our flag triumphed. 
Granville Sharp, Wilberforce, and other good 
men sent these poor f reedmen to Sierra Leone. 
Other poor creatures, wrested from slave-ships 
by the English navy, were afterward settled 
there. So that it has grown to be a region of 
considerable importance to African commerce, 
and has quite a large population. 

Some of those settlers had heard the Gospel 



176 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

from the lips of Methodist preachers in America. 
They kept it in their hearts as a precious treas- 
ure, and it kept them from sinking back into 
the heathenism of their ancestors. In 1808 
these faithful souls wrote to Dr. Adam Clarke 
for a Wesleyan missionary, and Dr. Coke, who 
delighted in mission work, after some delay, 
which made his great heart bleed, found a noble 
brother named George "Warren, who was not 
only willing but desirous to go, and to preach 
Jesus in that land of almost certain death to 
natives of Europe. 

George Warren, like Timothy of Holy Writ, 
had been taught to love the Scriptures when a 
child. Christ, dwelling in his heart, had given 
him a burning desire to tell the old, old story to 
the dark sons of Africa. But when he told Dr. 
Coke he was ready to go, his parents fearing he 
might fall a victim to fever, objected. Then 
this devoted man wrote them, saying, 

" I beseech you by the blood of souls not to 
hinder me from going ! " 

His earnestness conquered his father, who 



The Grave-yard of Missionaries. 177 

withdrew his objections. His mother died soon 
after. Then he left his comfortable station in 
Cornwall, and sailed to Sierra Leone in 1811. 
"When the pious little band, who had waited for 
a missionary, saw him land, they were filled 
with rapture, exclaiming, 

" This is what we have been praying for so 
long, and now the Lord has answered our 
prayers ! " 

Hundreds flocked to his preaching-place. He 
soon saw his work bear fruit. His heart was 
glad. He looked forward hopefully when, to 
the grief of his loving flock, the pitiless fever 
struck him, and he died only a little more than 
eight months after his arrival. He soon won the 
missionary's crown in glory. 

"A missionary wanted for Sierra Leone." 
Two years passed before this note in the Wes- 
leyan Minutes met with a response. The death 
of the noble Warren had chilled the zeal of 
many. At last, Mr. William Davies and his 
accomplished wife replied, " We will go ! " 
They went, and their labors soon made the 



178 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

people glad. Mrs. Davies gathered a school of 
one hundred and fifty girls. The wilderness 
began to blossom when, alas ! ten months had 
scarcely passed before this heroic couple were 
both smitten with fever on the same day. A 
few days of suffering followed, and then the 
purified soul of the missionary's wife ascended 
to the throne of her glorified Lord. The peo- 
ple placed a tombstone on her grave, with this 
fitting inscription, " Not lost, but gone be- 
fore ! " 

The bereaved husband recovered. Not long 
after he had resumed his labors he was praying 
for a poor, penitent native in the prayer-room, 
when a cry of joy was heard in a distant corner. 
The next moment the missionary found himself 
in the arms of the penitent, who was crying, 
" I found him ! I found him ! " 

" What have you found ? " inquired Mr. 
Davies, who was still firmly embraced in the 
man's arms. 

" I found Christ. I feel his pardoning peace. 
His Spirit says, 'Go in peace; thy sins are 



The Grave-yard of Missionaries. 179 

forgiven thee,' " replied the man, no longer a 
weeping penitent, but a rejoicing believer in 
the Lamb of God. 

This scene, odd though it was, comforted the 
afflicted missionary's heart. Still greater was 
his consolation when, after preaching a few 
times in one of the outlying village, he saw the 
head-man of the place bring a bag filled with 
greegrees into an open space. These greegrees 
were bits of leather, horn, or paper, on which 
the priests had written some Arabic w r ords, 
which were supposed to give them power to 
keep those who bought them from harm. 
"Bring shavings, sticks, and straw!" said the 
man with the bag to the people. His command 
was obeyed, and then, emptying the contents of 
his bag upon the burning sticks, he let the fire 
consume all those pretended amulets. 

The people gazed on this strange spectacle. 
Wonder, mingled with fear, kept them silent. 
Presently one man spoke in a melancholy tone, 
saying, 

" What me do now for greegree to keep me ? " 



180 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

To him an old man replied, sharply, " Hold 
your tongue, yon ! We tink greegree keep we 
from the big fire, and he no can keep himself 
from burning before my eye. Me be fool no 
longer. Me seek white men God ; me seek 
Massa Jesus to save me." 

To win these simple people to Christ was 
meat and drink to this devoted missionary. He 
rejoiced to see the good work spread, and wrote 
home, saying, "I need help." Mr. Samuel 
Brown and his faithful wife offered themselves 
as reapers in this dangerous field, and were sent 
out to join him in 1816. They began work 
with bright hopes of success, when, alas ! only 
seven months after their arrival, the fever 
smote them, and Mrs. Brown died, and was 
buried in the same grave with the lamented 
Mrs. Davies. 

Mr. Brown recovered, and resumed his labors 
with marked success, though Mr. Davies, owing 
to repeated attacks of fever, was obliged to re- 
turn to England. But Christ was with him, and 
helped him turn many to righteousness. Yet 



The Grave- yard of Missionaries. 181 

such, was the deadly nature of the climate that 
Mr. Brown's removal became necessary in 1819. 
But who would be willing to succeed him? 
Three had died in the work in the short space of 
less than seven years. Were there any more he- 
roic souls ready to die for poor African sinners ? 
Of course there were, for the love that brought 
Jesus from his throne in heaven to die on the 
cross never fails to move some of his disciples 
to put their lives in peril whenever his work 
requires such a sacrifice. 

The two heroes who went to take Brown's 
place were single men, named John Baker and 
John Gillison. They found more than two hun- 
dred and fifty souls serving the Saviour. They 
soon saw several who had been makers of gree- 
grees turn unto the Lord. Their prospering 
work made them very happy when, for the 
fourth time, death demanded another noble vic- 
tim. Six months after his arrival, John Gillison 
fell beneath the deadly fever's sudden stroke. 
He was only twenty-two years old when he left 

his earthly habitation to go and take possession 
12 



182 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

of the mansion not made with hands. Yet his 
life was not short, if, as a poet says, 

" That life is long which answers life's great end." 

John Baker, in spite of weakness caused by 
repeated attacks of fever, kept the field, fight- 
ing death with one hand and Satan with the 
other. He was mighty against both, and by 
1821 had no less than seven hundred and forty 
rejoicing souls under his pastoral care. The 
story of his success had moved others to venture 
their lives, and in that year he had the pleasure 
of greeting Mr. and Mrs. Huddlestone and Mr. 
Lane as fellow-laborers in that land so fatal to 
the lives of missionaries. For himself he chose 
not to return to England, but to go to the river 
Gambia, and begin new work in a region thought 
to be less sickly than Sierra Leone. He was to 
be aided in this latter work by Mr. Morgan, 
another noble volunteer in this perilous portion 
of the Lord's great harvest-field. 

Messrs. Baker and Morgan suffered many 
hardships on the banks of the Gambia,, but were 



The Grave-yard of Missionaries. 183 

not long without evidence that God's truth 
could work wonders in the hearts of the de- 
praved natives. Their first convert was a poor 
woman at a village called St. Mary's. " O mas- 
sa, my heart trouble me too much," was her 
confession after hearing them preach a few 
times. They told her of the sinner's Friend. 
She soon after met in class, where she said to 
Mr. Morgan, 

"Me went into the bush, and put me knee 
down on the ground, and me pray, and pray, 
till all my trouble go away. Me glad too much, 
and me praise my Massa Jesus ; and then me 
pray for my poor husband that my Massa Jesus 
would save him.' 5 

These very simple words are beautiful because 
of their simplicity. And although their speaker 
was an untaught black woman, they decribe the 
manner in which souls are saved through peni- 
tence and faith in Jesus as clearly as it could 
be done by any white Christian scholar. Is it 
any wonder that our missionaries felt their hearts 
grow warm toward such converts; or that, as 



184 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

fast as one of them died at his post, other heroic 
spirits in the Wesleyan Church stood ready to 
step in and fill the gaps made by the remorse- 
less hand of Death ? 

It seemed at times as if Satan, eager to take 
revenge for their success against his kingdom, 
was goading Death to destroy the missionaries 
by whom it was achieved. In the two years 
preceding 1830 no less than four Wesleyan 
missionaries and one missionary's wife died in 
that West African work. In less than forty 
years from the opening of the mission, over 
fifty-four missionary laborers laid down their 
lives in that land of many European graves. 

Fifty-four heroes in about forty years dying, 
not for fame or riches or earthly honors, but for 
the privilege of telling poor, ignorant, degraded 
men, women, and children about Jesus and his 
love ! What a glorious page this sad fact makes 
in the history of Methodism ! Surely nothing 
but the Spirit of Christ could have made so 
many persons willing to step into the places of 
those who first fell at their posts. Eemember, 



The Grave-yard of Missionaries. 185 

they were not persuaded to do it by their 
friends. They were volunteers in the fullest 
sense of that word. One of those morally 
grand men, named William Rowland Peck, in 
telling how he came to go, said, of a great mis- 
sionary meeting at which he was present when 
only nineteen years old, " Such times as these 
fill me with zeal for the conversion of sinners. 
O, my soul yearns over them ! O, that I might 
go and tell them Jesus died ! O, how I long to 
be traversing the weary plains of Africa ! The 
more I hear of the dangers and difficulties of a 
missionary life in Africa the more anxious I am 
to go." 

This was the spirit which moved Mr. Peck — 
the true missionary spirit breathed into his soul 
by Him who died for sinners. Had it been the 
mere enthusiasm of an excited lad, it would have 
died, like the brightness of a pleasing dream. 
But being heaven-born, it was a sacred flame 
nothing earthly could put out. It burned 
steadily through three years, when the oppor- 
tunity was given him to gratify his desire. 



186 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

Then he told his mother whither he was 
going. Her heart swelled with anguish, and 
she exclaimed, 

" Roland, if you go to Western Africa, you 
will be the death of me." 

This appeal of mother-love to his affection 
for her was a painful test of his love to Christ. 
But, though he loved her dearly, he loved Jesus 
still more. Hence, with tears in his eyes, he 
tenderly replied, 

" Mother, if you do not consent to my going 
to Africa, you will be the death of me ! " 

Thus did his love for Jesus prove itself 
stronger than his love for his mother. And 
she, good, devoted soul, after much prayer, con- 
sented to his going, saying, 

" I see it is of the Lord, and I will not resist 
his will." 

Nor did she, but went with his fond father 
to see him ordained. On that solemn occasion 
she heard him say, in burning words, "I am 
not only willing to go to Africa, but I long 
to go ! " 



The Grave-yard of Missionaries. 187 

And he went, was received gladly by the 
people, was very successful in saving souls, 
and alas ! after about six months, was laid low 
by the pitiless coast fever. Was he sorry, think 
you, when tossing with fever and racked with 
the pains of death, that he had given himself up 
to missionary work in Africa? Not in the 
least degree. It was not of his own death that 
he thought, but of what he feared might 
be its effect on the friends of missions at 
home. 

" Nothing," said he, the day before his death, 
" nothing grieves me so much as the thought 
that my death will cause the hands of our 
friends in England to hang down." 

" O, unselfish soul ! No wonder that in his 
last moment he tried to sing, 

" Happy, if with my latest breath 
I may but gasp His name ; " 

or that, when his voice sank into silence, 
he lifted his hands to heaven in token of 
the victory which was even then crowning 
his freed soul as it ascended from the pes- 






188 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

tiferous atmosphere of Africa into the house 
of the glorified. 

It was because the self-denying spirit of 
this noble missionary lived in the Wesleyan 
Church that it never lacked volunteers eager 
to go to that grave-yard of missionaries, West- 
ern Africa. 



In the Land of the Namaquas. 189 



CHAPTER XII. 

IN THE LAND OF THE NAMAQUAS. 

" With weary hand, yet steadfast wills, 

In old age as in youtli 
The Master found thee sowing still 

The good seed of his truth." — Whittier. 

"ATEARLY seventy years ago a Wesleyan 
-L ^ minister, about twenty-seven years of age, 
informed the Wesleyan Conference that he 
desired to go into the foreign missionary work. 
Knowing him to be a man of energy, as well as 
of ability, the Conference accepted his offer, and 
the Missionary Committee bade him go to 
Ceylon. Cheerfully accepting this important 
and prosperous work, Barnabas Shaw, with 
his pious wife, immediately began his prepara- 
tions for the long voyage to that distant isle. 

But, as in an army, soldiers often have to be 
ordered from one post to another, so it at times 
became necessary for the Wesleyan Missionary 



190 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

Committee to change the appointment of their 
missionaries. Hence, while Mr. Shaw was in 
London getting ready for Ceylon, he was re. 
quested to go to South Africa instead. The 
Wesleyan Mission to the latter country had 
previously failed, owing to the opposition of the 
colonial government. It was thought that the 
time had now come to make another attempt. 
Mr. Shaw seemed to be the right man to do 
this. He knew it was a more difficult field than 
Ceylon, that he would have to battle with many 
difficulties without a colleague — at least for a 
season. Nevertheless, having a heroic soul, 
burning with desire to carry the good news of 
salvation to the heathen of any land, he cheer- 
fully consented, and sailed in December, 1815, 
for the Cape of Good Hope. After a stormy 
voyage, during which he and his wife had to 
witness the burial of their infant daughter, in 
mid-ocean, he landed in Cape Town, and, as soon 
as convenient, waited on Lord Somerset, the 
governor of the colony, to ask permission to 
open his mission in that place. 



In the Land of the Namaquas. 191 

His papers were of the highest character. 
The governor could not object to them. Yet, 
though very courteous in speech, he very de- 
cidedly refused to give the desired permission. 
" There are plenty of clergymen here," said he, 
" for all the English and Dutch ; and the slave- 
holders are unwilling to have missionaries 
preach to the colored people. 

This coldly polite speech was to Barnabas 
Shaw what a chilling fog is to a landscape. 
But the warmth of his love for souls, and his 
strong native courage, soon revived his spirits. 
" If the governor," he thought, " is afraid of the 
Dutch and English preachers and of the slave- 
holders, I need not fear them. I ought to obey 
God rather than men. And I will." 

This noble thought had life in it. It moved 
him to make inquiries among the English sol- 
diers stationed at Cape Town. He soon found 
that a few pious souls among them were in the 
habit of meeting for prayer in a room hired by 
them for that purpose. To them, therefore, Mr. 
Shaw preached, the Sunday after his arrival, 



192 Missionary Heeoes and Heroines. 

cc the first Methodist sermon ever heard in 
South Africa." 

Encouraged by this opening, Mr. Shaw visited 
two other military stations, within twenty miles 
of Cape Town, where, also, he met with a cor- 
dial welcome from little bands of men who were 
both soldiers of England and of the kingdom of 
Christ. These devout warriors hung with delight 
on his fervent lips. He did them good, no 
doubt, but his soul yearned for access to the un- 
numbered Hottentots, Kaffirs, Negroes, and 
others, scattered over the vast territory, two 
thousand miles long by two thousand miles 
broad, which lay between Cape Town and the 
Equator, and was known to the world as South 
Africa. 

How can I reach those untaught souls ? was 
the question which burned itself into his heart. 
The God of missions soon answered it by bringing 
into Cape Town a missionary with a dozen con- 
verted heathen from the land of the Namaquas. 
This good man's name was Schmelen. He was 
employed by the London Missionary Society, 



In the Land of the Namaquas. 193 

but, in the liberal spirit of a true missionary, he 
urged Mr. Shaw to return with him, and start a 
Wesleyan mission among some of the Namaqua 
tribes. 

The sight of those converted Namaquas, the 
persuasions of the devoted Schmelen, the cheer- 
ful consent of Mrs. Shaw to accompany him, and 
the prospect of a promising field, determined 
Mr. Shaw to attempt the long, tedious journey 
into the country of the Namaquas. Suppose you 
join them on their way thither, it will give you 
a faint idea of what missionaries have often en- 
dured when seeking to preach Jesus to the 
heathen in their homes of poverty and woe. 

Their vehicle is not a trimly painted stage- 
coach, drawn by a spirited team of horses, but 
a large four-wheeled wagon covered with can- 
vas, and drawn by a team of sixteen or eighteen 
oxen. If you will peep at its interior, you will 
see that it is fitted up with chests. One of these 
in front and another behind are for crockery- 
ware, for bread, tea, sugar, and other small 
articles. Along its sides are boxes for hammers, 



194 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

axes, and other tools. Its floor is mostly covered 
with, trunks and bags filled with clothing and 
other useful things for a missionary station in a 
lone land. Over the chests and packages in the 
rear there is a frame- work for a mattress on which 
the travelers expect to sleep. The little space 
left in the front part of the wagon is to be used 
as a sitting-room. It is a clumsy, cumberous 
concern, without springs, but it is to be the house 
of our brave missionary and his heroic wife for 
weeks, while they journey along the wretched 
trails toward the lost people whom they seek to 
save. 

You can form a picture in your mind of Mr. 
Shaw and his wife seated in this bungling ma- 
chine. One Hottentot, armed with a very long 
whip, is on the driver's seat ; another is in front 
of the long ox-team to guide the oxen ; one or 
two others follow behind, driving a small flock 
of sheep to be used for food on the long jour- 
ney. These Hottentots are also expected to help 
in preparing the nightly encampments and in 
cooking food. 



In the Land of the Namaquas. 195 

On the 6th of September, 1816, our mission- 
aries quit Cape Town. A few pious soldiers 
and other friends go with them to their first 
halting-place, where, after prayer, they bid them 
farewell. The missionary party, which includes 
the faithful Schemlen and his converted Nama- 
quas, moves on until late in the evening, w T hen 
it halts for the night. Not having the inside 
of their wagon properly stowed, Mr. and Mrs. 
Shaw cannot use their mattress, but have to 
sleep as best they can, reclining among their 
boxes and bags. Depend upon it, their sleep 
that night was broken and unrestful. 

The first person Mr. Shaw saw, when he crept 
out of his comfortless lodging the next morning, 
was his friend Schmelen, sitting under a bush, 
stirring his cup of coffee with a dry twig. A 
happy smile lighted his kindly face, while he 
said, " Good-morning, sir;" and then, holding 
up his twig, he added, "This is a Namaqua 
spoon." 

After partaking of a rustic breakfast served 
with little ceremony the party gathered for wor- 



196 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

ship, in which the converted natives joined very 
devoutly. 

Proceeding on their journey, at the slow rate 
of some ten or twelve miles a day, for about 
eighteen days, they met with the usual difficulties 
of South African travel. Rough roads, over- 
flowing rivers without bridges, stretches of desert 
in which was no water, steep, stony hills, and 
swampy vales impeded their progress. Yet they 
pressed on undismayed, cheered by the hope of 
finding, not gold, or silver, or diamonds, or 
houses, or lands, but human souls to whom they 
might tell " that sweet story of old " about the 
riches of heavenly grace. 

After traveling about two hundred miles, 
they were surprised one day by hearing a Nam- 
aqua exclaim : 

" The chief of the Little Namaquas, with four 
of his people, is coming ! " 

Our party halted. The chief approached. 
He told a story which made the heart of Bar- 
nabas Shaw leap for joy. He had heard, he 
said, of the " Great Word," and was on his way ' 



In the Land of the Namaquas. 197 

to Cape Town to find a teacher. After hearing 

his story, Mr. Shaw thought he saw, in this 

chief's presence, the finger of God pointing him 

to his land and tribe as a suitable field of labor. 

" I will go with you to your kraal," said he, to 

the chief, who was so delighted, on hearing 

these words, that he shed tears of joy and 

gladness. 

The generous Schmelen went with Mr. Shaw 

to the home of this inquiring chief, two hundred 

miles from the place where he met them. The 

Namaquas gave our missionary as cordial a 

greeting as he could desire. Finding them 

willing to aid him in every way possible to 

them, and eager to be taught the truth, Mr. 

Shaw concluded to remain at Lily Fountain, 

as the place was named. The good Schmelen 

went on his way to Great Namaqu aland, and 

Barnabas Shaw and his noble wife, left alone 

among a savage people, founded the first Wes- 

leyan mission station in South Africa, at Lily 

Fountain. 

A missionary cannot, ought hot, to live as 
13 



198 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

savage people do. Hence, Mr. Shaw had to 
build a little cottage, fence, dig, and plant a gar- 
den, and make such furniture as tables, bedsteads, 
and chairs. The Namaquas helped him, but they 
were so unused to steady work, and so slow to 
learn the use of tools, that our missionary had 
to be in good part his own workman. But he 
toiled cheerfully, preached to them through an 
interpreter, opened a school, began to study 
their language, and explored the surrounding 
country as far as the Orange River. All this 
made his work very, yery wearisome. At the 
same time he and his patient wife had to suffer 
many privations. But faith and hope made 
their hearts strong and happy. 

The good seed soon began to grow among 
the simple-minded Namaquas. Its first shoots 
appeared in their efforts to live less like savages, 
and to form new habits of labor and life. After 
a time the truth led some of them to weep over 
their sins, and to seek Jesus. Said one of his 
first converts, " I believe Jesus has more love 
for a sinner than any mother for her child." 



In the Land of the Namaquas. 199 

Another said, " When I think of the love of 
God in the gift of his Son, my thoughts stand 
still, I am dumb with silence." Only eight 
months after arriving at Lily Fountain, Mr. 
Shaw had the unspeakable pleasure of baptizing 
seventeen adult converts and eleven children. 
This was, indeed, success. And those converts 
proved to be true and loyal. They kept the 
faith, and from that time onward Jesus had a 
constantly increasing band of disciples, not only 
at Lily Fountain, but also in other parts of 
Isamaqualand. 

When this good news reached England, and 
Mr. Shaw reported that the people were far too 
many for one man to teach, the Missionary 
Committee, in due time, sent out other self- 
denying men to help this successful man. Then 
the work spread in many directions, and for ten 
years continued under the supervision of its en- 
ergetic pioneer and his heroic wife. 

Lions were numerous in South Africa. Our 
missionary was often in danger from their 
attack when on his missionary journeys. 



200 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

Venomous snakes were also plentiful. Once, 
when he and his wife were encamped in the 
open air, that good lady, in moving the bed- 
covering with a view to placing their mattress 
in a suitable spot on which to pass the night, 
saw a venomous puff adder curled up beneath 
the bolster. But for this timely discovery it is 
likely that both of them would have ended their 
earthly lives that night. 

One of Mr. Shaw's assistants, eager to preach 
to the tribes beyond the Orange River, started 
on a tour of observation, with two native ex- 
horters for companions. Some vile Bushmen 
coveted the few articles they carried with tlfem, 
and one night, while they were asleep, fired 
poisoned arrows on the two natives, and killed 
them. The young missionary, awakened by the 
noise, and seeing the fierce Bushmen at hand, 
rose, fled to the shelter of a bush, and kneeled 
down to pray. While in that act a heavy stone 
from a Bushman's arm struck him a mortal 
blow on the head. Thus he fell by a murder- 
er's hand; but did he not ascend from that 



In the Land of the Namaquas. 201 

blood-stained spot to join the noble army of 
martyrs in the land of the redeemed ? With- 
out doubt he won a martyr's glorious 
crown. 

In 1827 Mr. and Mrs. Shaw, with their son 
Barnabas — they had buried two children in 
the land of the Namaquas — returned to En- 
gland, to rest and recruit. But his heart was 
in Africa, and although he still loved his 
native land, he returned, with his wife, early 
in 1829. After spending eight years in Cape 
Town and vicinity, his wife's health required 
his second return to the land of his birth. 
This time he spent six years preaching with 
success on English circuits. Then a loud cry 
for more help from the brethren in Nama- 
qualand was to Mr. Shaw what the blast of a 
trumpet is to a veteran war-horse. Again he 
volunteered to go to South Africa. He was 
warmly greeted in Cape Town; but his 
declining strength rendering his going again 
to the land of the Namaquas unadvisable, he 
spent the remainder of his active years doing 



202 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

circuit work within the bounds of the Cape 
Colony. He lived until June, 1857, when, 
being nearly seventy years of age, he quietly 
passed from the land he loved, to take his 
appointed place before the great white throne 
of his beloved Master. 



Perils of Missionary Life. 203 



CHAPTER XIII. 

PERILS AND TRIALS OF MISSIONARY LIFE. 

u Pour blessed Gospel, glorious news for man! 

Thy stream of life o'er springless deserts roll, 
Thy bond of peace the mighty earth can span, 

And make one brotherhood from pole to pole." 

■ — C. ASHWORTH. 

Tl /TODERN missionaries who go from their 
-*■*•* native land to distant countries, like Saint 
Paul in more ancient times, have to reckon 
among the dangers they must face the perils of 
the great, wide sea. A startling example of one 
such peril is given by Elijah Hoole, a Wes- 
leyan missionary, who, in 1820, was sent from 
England to Madras, India. 

In company with Mr. James Mowat and wife, 
who were going to the same mission, he found 
himself, after a quick passage, near the end of 
his voyage in the ship " Tanjore." Then atjhe 
close of a fine warm day in September a thunder- 



204 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

storm burst forth, but caused no unusual alarm. 
Mr. Hoole was on deck taking a farewell view 
of the mountains of Ceylon, where the ship had 
recently landed a few passengers. A heavy 
cloud with a luminous center met his eye. He 
pointed it out to the captain, who thought it 
harmless. Then the storm became more and 
more violent, and the missionary retreated from 
the rushing rain to the shelter of the cuddy. 
Presently a terrific flash of lightning struck the 
ship. The roar and crackling of the thunder 
which accompanied it was deafening. A pas- 
senger near the cuddy door was prostrated. Two 
seamen fell dead on the deck. 

Then the voice of the second mate was heard 
loudly shouting, 

" Fire in the hold ! Fire below ! " 
At that alarming cry every soul on board 
rushed to the deck. Pumps were manned, 
buckets handed round, all joined in an effort to 
extinguish the fire. Vain endeavor! The 
flames had the mastery. The ship must be 
abandoned. 



Perils of Missionary Life. 205 

" Get out the boats ! " was the next cry. But 
the long boat was already on fire. The " yawl " 
with much difficulty was got afloat, as was the 
" gig" also. Mrs. Mowat and another lady were 
put into the yawl. The other passengers and 
the ship's company were crowded into both 
boats, which were so overloaded that they sank 
to very near the water's edge. In fleeing from 
death by fire they ran great risk of perishing 
by water. Most of them were only partly 
clothed, and the rain, still falling in torrents, 
literally drenched them and compelled them to 
keep bailing the overloaded boats to prevent 
them from being swamped. 

In their haste they had taken but three oars. 
The yawl had no rudder. The ship, by this 
time enveloped in flames, seemed drifting toward 
them. Fortunately the sea was now calm and 
the wind quiet. By dint of skill and toil they 
got their boats out of danger from the burning 
ship. In two hours from the time when she 
was struck they saw her masts fall. Shortly 
after the greedy sea engulfed her, and those 



206 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

forty-two persons found themselves without 
food or water in deep darkness with the cer- 
tainty of sinking should the wind blow or the 
waters swell. Nevertheless, our missionaries 
were calm and peaceful, for their trust was in 
Him for whose work's sake they had left their 
happy English homes. 

Slowly and painfully that night wore away. 
Daylight enabled them to see land ahead, but, 
alas for their dawning hopes ! a nearer approach 
to it showed it to be a wild, uninhabited jungle, 
with a coast-line bristling with rocks forever 
washed by foaming breakers. 

This was disheartening. The sun, glaring 
with brightness and intolerably hot, added to 
their discomfort. Death by drowning or star- 
vation seemed inevitable, until they discovered 
a native vessel anchored in the distance. To- 
ward this craft they rowed, making such signals 
as they could invent out of their scant clothing. 
After five hours of toil and anxiety they reached 
the vessel, and not without difficulty persuaded 
its owners to take them all on board. Fortu- 



Perils of Missionary Life. 207 

nately they were not very far from Trincomalee, 
a city of Ceylon, where there was a Wesleyan 
mission station. Thither they directed their 
course. Forty-three hours after quitting their 
burning ship, our missionaries found themselves 
safely lodged in the Wesleyan mission house, 
cheered by the affectionate attentions of the two 
mission families who were its occupants. 

They had lost books, clothing, every thing but 
the few garments in which they had hastily clad 
themselves when so suddenly driven from the 
burning ship. Yet their perils by sea were not 
ended. They had to take ship again to reach 
Madras. A small schooner, named the " Co- 
chin," was the only craft available. Her little 
cabin was given to the two ladies of the party. 
The gentlemen had to sleep in hammocks slung 
so near together that at every motion of the 
vessel they rubbed one against another. This 
was a hardship increased by the violence of the 
wind. The waves ran so high that they swept 
over the tiny bark, threatening to engulf her. 
Her store of food also ran short, so that hunger 



208 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

was added to peril. But the Lord protected his 
disciples, and after three days and two nights on 
the deep they were permitted to land safely at 
Madras, in Southern India. Mr. Hoole and Mr. 
Mowat were appointed to begin their missionary 
labors by founding a new mission at a place 
named Bangalore, situated some distance in the 
interior. 

Like loyal soldiers of the cross, they were 
desirous of starting at once for their post of 
duty. But their missionary brethren in Madras 
said to them, "You have no books, no ward- 
robes. You had better stay here until you can 
get a new supply of those things so necessary 
to your work. You can proceed with your 
study of the Tamul language, which you must 
learn before you can preach. We will loan you 
our libraries for this purpose." 

This was good advice, given with generous 
kindness. They followed it, and devoted their 
time to the diligent study of the language and 
of the people. There was a congregation of 
native Wesleyans in Madras. Of course Mr. 



Perils of Missionary Life. 209 

Hoole visited it. Let me tell you what he saw 
there. 

The chapel had no pews, only a large open 
space with a pulpit in the rear. The people — 
men, women, and children — were sitting on 
mats spread on the floor. The men were neatly 
(Jressed in white cotton clothes ; the women in 
red or blue cloths, some of cotton, some of silk, 
nine yards long, wrapped about their persons 
without the aid of pins or sewing. One end was 
drawn over the head serving as a vail. The ser- 
vice began with a Tamul hymn, which the people 
stood up to sing. After the hymn prayers 
were read, during which the people all kneeled 
with their bodies inclined forward, almost pros- 
trate, their hands and faces resting on the ground. 
After prayer came the reading of the Scriptures. 
Then Mr. Close, the missionary, preached in 
English, but repeated sentence by sentence in 
Tamul. Mr. Hoole noticed that the peple were 
"wonderfully attentive." When Mr. Close 
asked questions, as he frequently did, their re- 
plies showed that they understood what they 



210 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

heard. Of course, Mr. Hoole was highly pleased 
with this interesting and encouraging spectacle 
of a Christian congregation in a heathen land. 

After a few weeks' stay in Madras, the Wes- 
leyan missionary at Negapatam, one hundred 
and eighty miles south of Madras, sent for some 
one to help him. As it was the rainy seasoft, 
and therefore unfit for Mrs. Mowat to make 
such a journey, Mr. Hoole consented to under- 
take it. 

There was no railroad, no stage, no carriage 
to convey him to the field of his labors, nothing 
but horses, or a palankeen, which was a sort of 
covered cot carried on men's shoulders by means 
of two poles. To travel on horseback required 
tents for rest and sleep; it also exposed the 
rider to dews by night and sun-stroke by day, 
both very dangerous to persons unused to the 
climate. When Mr. Hoole saw his palankeen 
with its ten bearers, and six men to carry bag- 
gage and cooking utensils, he shrank from see- 
ing human beings employed as beasts of burden. 
But he had to submit to the law of necessity, 



Perils of Missionary Life. 211 

and crept into his palankeen, which was a double 
one, made to carry two persons sitting one at 
each end, facing each other. Being alone, he 
could sit or lie at full length as his comfort 
might require. 

At four o'clock one afternoon four of the 
bearers took up his palankeen and started at the 
rate of about five- miles an hour. The other 
bearers and the baggage carriers ran before and 
behind, talking, laughing, and singing. After 
ten minutes the bearers stopped. Four others 
took their places, and the march was resumed as 
before. This change was kept up until they 
reached a choultry r , or resting-place. As there 
were no inns for travelers, brick or stone build- 
ings, called choultries, which were merely four 
w r alls with a sheltering roof, stood on the high- 
ways for their free use. In one of these struct- 
ures Mr. Hoole rested. A servant, hired for 
that purpose, prepared tea for him by lighting 
a fire outside the choultry, after drinking which 
our missionary wrapped his outer garment about 
him and went to sleep. At three o'clock in the 



212 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

morning he resumed his journey. In India, 
travelers journey during the greater part of the 
night, and sleep during the heat of the day. 

By the soft light of a brilliant moon Mr. 
Hoole' s bearers trotted along the narrow tracks 
called roads in that far-off land, through swamps 
and jungles, over the hills and across the bridge- 
less streams. The first river they forded was 
much swollen by recent rains. The current was 
strong, and several feet deep. Mr. Hoole won- 
dered how they would get him and his palan- 
keen over it. But those bearers understood 
their business. Pausing on the bank they took 
off most of their clothing, which they folded 
about their heads. Then taking up their load 
they moved with it into the water up to their 
knees ; then they stood still until the palankeen 
with its inmate, was placed on the heads of six 
bearers. Moving on, these men were presently 
up to their necks in water. Mr. Hoole was, of 
course, not a little nervous lest the strength of 
the current should overpower his men. He had 
heard of parties swept to destruction by a sudden 



Perils of Missionary Life. 213 

rush of water from the mountains. But, aided 
by their comrades, who held their hands, they 
moved steadily forward into shallow water, and 
the missionary found himself safe on the other 
side. After eight days of this uncomfortable 
mode of traveling he reached Negapatam, 
which, for a brief space, was to be his field for 
Christian work. 

As yet his time was largely spent in the study 
of the people's language ; but, like a faithful 
worker, he did what he could by preaching 
through an interpreter. He chose the numerous 
choultries in the country around the city as 
preaching places. He always found many 
people in them. Standing on the steps in their 
front, with his native interpreter, he spoke to 
them of Jesus, and found them very ready to 
listen. 

When the time came for him to proceed to 
his appointment at Bangalore, he made the jour- 
ney of three hundred miles, borne as before, in 
a palankeen. It took him thirteen days of dis- 
comfort and fatigue to make this trip. He soon 
14 



214 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

learned to preach in Tamul ; but, while walking 
one evening, came very near finishing his work 
before it was fairly begun. India is a land of 
venomous serpents, which destroy thousands of 
lives every year. As he was crossing a hedge 
one of these animals, about three feet in length, 
was creeping on the side opposite to him. For- 
tunately, in leaping the hedge, Mr. Hoole cleared 
the dangerous creature. Had he leaped upon it, 
his life would have been sacrificed. 

The sights which meet a missionary's eyes in 
heathen lands are often disgusting, sometimes 
horrible. Even the religion of those lost ones 
is cruel. To please their imaginary gods many 
of them torture themselves. Mr. Hoole saw 
men in and about Bangalore, some of whom had 
holes bored through their cheeks and tongues ; 
others had iron or wooden spikes running through 
those holes ; still others stood with lighted fire 
on their heads ; others were there wearing iron 
frames over a foot square riveted around their 
necks. One man whom he saw was walking on 
a pilgrimage with spikes thickly set in the soles 



Perils of Missionary Life. 215 

of his sandals, his feet pressing on their points. 
Can you wonder that missionaries who see such 
sights are so filled with pity as to give up the 
sweet comforts of home, and to brave perils by 
sea and land, and to wear themselves into early 
graves through living in sickly climates ? 

In this volume I have aimed to give you a 
peep at some of those dangers and annoyances 
which make the life of a missionary one of incon- 
veniences and hardships. But these trials are 
light when compared with the sorrow they feel 
because of the misery, wickedness, and unwill- 
ingness of heathen people to receive the truth. 
These things burden their hearts and crush their 
health. But for the success they do witness, 
which is in truth very great, and the comfort of 
heavenly love which they enjoy, none of them 
would live very long. Even with these medi- 
cines of the mind many of them soon break 
down and die. Others when first disabled 
wisely return to their native land to recruit and 
to preach to their countrymen at home. Mr. 
Hoole, after eight years of very hard work, 



216 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

which bore some luxurious fruit, found himself 
obliged to cease his work and to return to En- 
gland. Other men entered into his labors, and 
multitudes in India, once steeped in heathen 
wretchedness, are now happy men, earnest 
Methodists, and loyal disciples of our beloved 
Lord. 

Now let us glance at a Wesleyan missionary, 
named William Shaw, whose field was in South 
Africa, some three hundred miles from that of 
Mr. Barnabas Shaw.* His chapel is an old 
farm-house, in a state of ruin. Its floor is the 
earth ; its thatched roof is much broken ; and 
its reed walls are pierced with holes to let in 
light and air. His pulpit is a flour barrel with 
a writing desk on top. The building is in- 
fested with rats and mice, which attract the 
venomous snakes of the country. As the mis- 
sionary is speaking one day, one of his hearers 
jumps up and exclaims, 

" Sir, there is a puff adder between your 

feet!" 

* See preceding chapter. 



Perils of Missionary Life. 217 

Mr. Shaw looks down and sees the deadly 
creature close to his feet. He quietly steps 
aside; the people rush upon the snake with 
sticks and kill it. And thus the missionary nar- 
rowly escapes the deadly peril which had met 
him at his post of duty. 

This same gentleman is starting one morning 
to one of his appointments, seventy miles away 
from his humble abode. He mounts one horse. 
His man is astride a second beast, and leads a 
third by the bridle. He rides briskly for two 
hours across the lonely country. Then his horse 
needs rest. He dismounts, rests about twenty 
or thirty minutes, and then, mounting the led 
horse, starts again. In some two hours more 
his horses are languid through thirst and heat. 
He searches ■ for water. After he finds it, the 
horses are allowed to drink and rest. Then off 
he rides again beneath the scorching sun until 
both horse and rider are parched with thirst. 
A pool of dirty brackish water is found. The 
horses dash toward it ; but have to be kept from 
it until they cool off a little. The missionary 



218 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

slakes his thirst as best he can with the distaste- 
ful water, then sits down with not so much as 
a shrub to shelter his burning brain. Opening 
his portmanteau, he eats the little food it con- 
tains. After finishing his scanty luncheon, he 
looks to the north-west and sees dark clouds 
rolling across the sky. Knowing that they por- 
tend a severe storm, he hastily mounts his 
weary steed and hurries on. 

But the storm is swiftert han his horse, and 
the rain descends in torrents wetting him to the 
skin. As night approaches he lights upon a 
lonely farm-house. Pausing at its door-step, he 
hails the farmer who asks, 

" Who are you, if I may ask % " 

" I am a missionary. May I saddle off, if you 
please ? " 

Consent being given, he and his man enter. 
A simple meal is given them. He then holds 
a religious service with the household ; after 
which, as they have no bed to offer him, he lies 
down on the bare ground and tries to go to sleep, 
thinking that he has traveled fifty miles that 



Perils of Missionary Life. 219 

day toward his appointment. But before sleep 
visits liis weary eyes the rain again pours down 
in torrents upon the leaking roof of the rude 
dwelling. Every thing is speedily wet; and, 
tired though he be, he can scarcely close his 
eyes through the tedious night. His poor tired 
horses are suffering too outside, for the farmer 
has no barn, and the beasts stand in the pelting 
rain without food until morning. 

With the dawn of day he starts again, rides 
two hours, then stops to rest. His man kindles 
a fire in the open air, boils some water in a tin 
vessel, steeps some tea, and this, with a little 
dry bread, is our missionary's breakfast ! Again 
he takes to his saddle and rides on to his ap- 
pointment. After preaching, meeting class, 
and seeing his people, he starts to return home. 
But the rains which met him on his way 
out have swollen the streams, and without 
a roof to protect him, he has to wait at the 
overflowing fords until the water is low enough 
for him to cross. And then he hastens as he 
may to his home and family. 



220 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

This is a specimen of Mr. Shaw's circuit 
journeys in South Africa. And it was by such 
hardships as these, that Wesleyan missions 
were established in South Africa. O much 
enduring missionaries ! "What but the love of 
Christ could move men to face such trials ? 



Two Missionary Pioneers in India. 221 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

TWO MISSIONARY PIONEERS IN INDIA. 

" This is our mission ; we are blest 

Obeying holy love's behest ; 
In his sweet name we send 

Glad tidings to the lands afar, 
That rays from our Prophetic star 
With their night shades may blend." 

— Mrs. H. B. Crave. 

THIRTY years ago our Missionary Society 
sent out a call for some one to go to India 
to start a mission. Nearly two years fled into 
the dead past before any man responded. 
Then the Rev. William Butler, of the New 
England Conference, answered the call, saying, 
" Here am I, send me ! " 

Believing him to be the right man for the 
place, the Church authorities bade Dr. Butler 
go. But this gentleman had four children, two 
of whom being over seven years old it was not 



222 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

safe to take to so hot a climate. They must be 
left behind to be educated. 

To leave their beloved boys to the care of 
strangers in a boarding school was a sore trial 
to Dr. Butler and his excellent wife. Their 
hearts bled when they bade the little fellows 
good-bye. But they did it for the sake of Him 
who once gave his life for their sin — for the sins 
of the world. One of the dear lads they never 
saw again. He died before they returned to 
America. 

Steam-ships bore this missionary minister and 
his family across the great wide sea, first to 
Europe, and then to India, in safety. After 
landing at Calcutta they traveled by rail to Luck- 
now, in the Province of Oudh, where, after due 
inquiry as to the most suitable place, Mr. Butler 
determined to begin his mission. It was a city 
with half a million people in it, and outwardly 
as "lovely as the outer court of Paradise." But 
the people were as vile as sin could make them. 
They were also very unfriendly to foreigners, 
whose religion they detested with perfect hatred. 



Two Missionary Pioneers in India. 223 

That terrible rebellion of the Sepoys, which, 
made the civilized world sick at heart, was on 
the point of breaking forth ; and such was the 
bitterness of the natives toward men with white 
faces, that it was not safe for Dr. Butler to 
walk the streets of Lucknow without an armed 
trooper to protect him. 

Our missionary called on an officer of the 
British government and told him that he was 
about to found a Methodist mission in the 
city. 

" It is madness to attempt it," said this gen- 
tleman. " Your life will not be safe if you 
attempt it. The most sensible thing for you to 
do is to retrace your steps to Calcutta and take 
the first ship that sails for America." 

Then our undaunted doctor visited Sir James 
Outram, one of the bravest of old England's 
brave soldiers, and told him that he was trying 
to hire a house in Lucknow where he intended 
to preach the Gospel. The General looked at 
the missionary with wonder in his eyes, shrugged 
his shoulders, and told him it would be certain 



224 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

death to stand up in any part of that city or 
province and preach Jesus. 

" It is my duty to preach, Sir James ; my 
Master will take care of my life, and his Spirit 
will give my preaching success," replied our 
heroic missionary. 

But this bold soldier, who could lead his 
troops into a deadly breach, could not under- 
stand how a missionary could stand alone and 
unarmed amid thousands of infuriated Moham- 
medans and Hindus, and utter words sure to 
make them more furious still. So our mission- 
ary and the soldier parted, never to meet again 
in this world. 

No house could be found in Lucknow, and 
Dr. Butler was obliged to hire one at a place 
named Bareilly. 

Dr. Butler needed a helper who could speak 
both in English and in the language of the 
country. He found such a man, who, when an 
orphan boy, had been reared and taught by the 
Presbyterian missionaries in their mission school 
at Allahabad. His name was Joel. His mis- 



Two Missionary Pioneers in India. 225 

sionary friends, though very fond of Joel, were 
willing to part with him for the sake of the 
cause of truth, provided the young man was 
disposed to go with Dr. Butler, who said to 
him, 

"Joel, I am going to start a mission at 
Bareilly, three hundred miles away from your 
friends. I want a helper. Will you go with 
me?" 

Yes, Joel was willing, but he had a wife, a 
lovely young creature, and a little babe. Per- 
haps she would not consent to leave her mother. 
He would ask her. 

Emma, his brave little wife, nobly replied, 
" I will go whither you go, if my mother will 
consent." 

Dr. Butler knew that Peggy, Emma's mother, 
loved her daughter very fondly. He was almost 
afraid to ask her to make such a sacrifice as was 
involved in letting her go. Hence he went with 
Joel to see her, feeling very doubtful as to the 
results. 

Peggy listened to the request which the 



226 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

doctor was so loth to make. It drew tears 
from her eyes, but w r ith a heroism born of her 
loving faith, she replied, 

" Sahib, (sir,) the Saviour came down from 
heaven to give himself for me, and why should 
not I give my daughter to his work ? " 

. O, noble Peggy ! Though born an idolater 
she had believed in Christ through missionary 
teaching ; and her loving faith had transformed 
her into a Christian heroine. 

Joel and Emma went to Bareilly with Dr. 
Butler. It soon appeared that, though Joel 
could repeat his Catechism and read his Bible, he 
did not know what it was to be " born again." 
But being honest and sincere, as soon as he 
learned that Christianity was both a doctrine 
and an experience, he sought the experience, and 
in a short time was filled with the love of 
Christ. He then became a helper indeed to 
Dr. Butler, and in due time preached the 
Gospel to his countrymen. Joel was the first 
native Methodist preacher in our Indian 
Mission. 



Two Missionary Pioneers in India. 227 

Dr. Butler had scarcely set up his " household 
goods" in Bareilly before the terrible Sepoy 
rebellion burst forth, terrible as a tornado. 
" You must take your women and children to 
the hills at once" was the notice sent him by 
the British officer in command. He hated to 
quit his post. So did his heroic wife. But 
warning after warning to leave came to him, 
and after holding his ground three or four 
days, he concluded to heed those warning 
voices and flee to the mountains. Joel being a 
native, thought himself safe, and promised to 
stay at Bareilly and do what he could to keep 
up the work and guard the property of the 
infant mission. 

Their flight began in the night. They had 
before fchem a journey of seventy-four miles up 
the hills to Nynee Tal,* where they hoped to be 
in safety until the rebellion should be overcome. 
For twenty miles of that distance their road ran 
through a jungle thick with trees, reeking with 
malaria, and the haunt of wild elephants and, 

*See Frontispiece. 



228 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

ferocious tigers. They traveled at night by the 
dim light of flickering torches. To make mat- 
ters worse, at midnight of their second night's 
travel, many of the doctor's palankeen bearers 
forsook him. Others refused to proceed. He 
was now in deadly peril of perishing in the wil- 
derness. His heart sunk within him. He 
could only do one thing more, and that he did. 
He stepped within the jungle where, standing 
bareheaded, he pleaded with God to incline his 
obstinate bearers to go forward. Did Heaven 
answer that prayer ? It did ; for, on returning 
to his palankeen, he found them docile and mak- 
ing preparation to move on. The next morning 
he reached the traveler's bungalow, where he and 
his family tasted food for the first time during 
twenty-two hours of tedious and perilous travel. 
One more journey of seven hours took them 
into Nynee Tal, a sanitarium situated in the 
bosom of the mountains, where, in a little fur- 
nished cottage, they found rest from their toil 
and, as they hoped, comparative safety from the 
rebellious Sepoys. 



Two Missionary Pioneers in India. 229 

But what became of Joel and Emma ? Did 
they live in peace in Bareilly ? By no means. 
The Sepoys, after destroying every thing belong- 
ing to the English residents and to Dr. Butler 
at Bareilly, sought to kill every native Christian 
they could find. Warned in time of his danger, 
Joel, with his delicate little wife, sought safety 
in flight. They escaped, but their sufferings 
during their wanderings on foot, three hundred 
and forty miles, were at times almost too great 
for endurance.* But, thanks to Heaven's watchful 
providence, and to the brave Havelock and his 
troops, whom they me ton their march to Luck- 
now, they found safety at last in Allahabad ! 

But Dr. Butler and his family were not yet 
beyond the reach of the murderous Sepoys, who 
prepared to send a force to destroy the refugees 
who had gathered at Nynee Tal. "Warned of 
these preparations, the British authorities 
directed that the ladies, with a few gentlemen 
to protect them, should be sent thirty miles 
farther, to a place named Almorah. Our much- 
tried missionary was deputed to be one of the 
15 



230 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

gentlemen to go with this party. The road was 
steep, narrow, rough, and very dangerous. It 
took three days' travel to reach their comfortless 
place of refuge. Dr. Butler, through the fall of 
the pony on which he rode, narrowly escaped 
being thrown into the deep gorge which lay on 
one side of this mountain road. But Heaven 
again preserved his life, and he and his noble 
wife were permitted, after the suppression of 
the rebellion, to retrace their steps to Bareilly, 
and, in connection with additional missionaries 
from home, who had already arrived in India, 
to lay again the foundation of a mission. 
Disaster had met the first attempt. Dr. Butler's 
library and goods had been destroyed, but being 
sustained by faith and hope, he and his noble 
fellow- workers gave themselves to their work, 
and succeeded in planting one of the most im- 
portant and successful missions of modern 
times. The doctor formed the first class in 
Bareilly with seven members, in May, 1857. 
To-day, April 8, 1884, the North India Con- 
ference, of which that class was the germ, 



Two Missionary Pioneers in India. 231 

numbers 900 preachers, teachers, and helpers, 
4,662 members, 6,679 adherents, and 16,705 
Sunday-school scholars. Behold, what hath God 
wrought ! 




First Methodist Episcopal Church in india. 

India owes a heavy debt to the self-denying 
pioneers of our missions in North India. There 
is also another moral hero, whose work wrought 
precious results among the Eurasians, or East 
Indians as they prefer being called, in Southern 
India. These are persons whose fathers were 



232 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

Europeans and whose mothers were natives of 
India. They form a very respectable and useful 
element in Indian society. The gentleman whose 
labors have brought them great and manifold 
spiritual blessings is the Rev. William Taylor, 
whose remarkable zeal for his Lord has given 
him a world-wide and honorable fame. His 
first success as an evangelist was won in Cali- 
fornia, and then throughout the United States. 
A pious Canadian, who knew of his success in 
California, spoke to him one day about the 
needs of Australia. "I will go thither," said 
he. In keeping this purpose he went through 
parts of England, Ireland, and Palestine, preach- 
ing Jesus. Next he won many to Christ in 
Australia and New Zealand. He then sailed to 
South Africa, where thousands of colonists and 
native Kaffirs were given him as fruits of his 
preaching. 

With unresting zeal he afterward went to the 
West India Islands, to British Guiana, and then, 
on the invitation of our India Conference mis- 
sionaries, to India. 



Two Missionary Pioneers in India. 233 

After preaching with fair results in several 
large cities, Mr. Taylor, in November, 1871, 
began to hold special services in Bombay. 
Conversions followed. But his plain dealing 
and energetic methods were distasteful to the 
ministers and churches in that city. Then this 
earnest man said within himself, 

" These ministers and churches will not so 
treat my converts as to nurse them into earnest 
working Christians. I will, therefore, form 
them into Fellowship Bands." 

"With Mr. Taylor a good purpose means 
instant and decided action. Hence the bands 
were formed, somewhat after the pattern of Mr. 
Wesley's first societies. But the members of 
these bands, desiring closer fellowship with 
each other, soon asked Mr. Taylor to organize 
them into a Methodist Episcopal Church. He 
yielded to their wishes, and organized them 
according to our Discipline, they agreeing to 
make the Church " evangelistic, self-supporting, 
and without distinction of language, caste, or 
color." 



234 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

Out of this humble beginning the South 
India Conference speedily grew. Mr. Taylor, 
after raising up bands of converts in other 
cities, accepted some helpers from among his 
converts, and sent to America for others. As 
all his infant churches agreed to support their 
ministers without help from America, our Mis- 
sionary Society only paid the passages of such 
brethren as responded to Mr. Taylor's call. 
Those helpers were every-where successful in 
forming churches. No similar work of such mag- 
nitude as this, so soon attained, has been accom- 
plished in modern times at such small expense 
to the mother Church. The South India Con- 
ference, with its three Presiding Elders' districts, 
stands to-day a grand monument to the heroic 
courage, the remarkable self-denial, the deep 
piety, the unshrinking faith of "William Taylor. 
He has since been engaged in an attempt to repeat 
this success in South America, where both cir- 
cumstances and people seem very different from 
those in India. Possibly the difficulties there are 
insurmountable. Possibly his manifold resources, 



Two Missionary Pioneers in India. 235 

his personal power with men, and his fear- 
less faith in God may overcome them, and a 
self-supporting Methodist Episcopal Church be 
established in that priest-ridden country. We 
hope it may be done. Be this as it may, Will- 
iam Taylor's name will go down to the ages as 
that of a man whose courage, zeal, and useful- 
ness entitle him to the admiration and love of 
all who love the souls of men and the cause of 
the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Bishop Taylor* 
Since the above was written the missionary 
ability of William Taylor has been most emphat- 
ically recognized by our Church in his election 
as a Missionary Bishop for Africa ! The state 
of our wtfrk in Liberia has for some time past 
demanded more Episcopal service then could 
possibly be suppplied by the Board of Bishops. 
Although the Liberia Mission has been of 
incalculable value to many within its narrow 
bounds, it has not accomplished such results on 
the neighboring nations as to satisfy the desires 



236 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

of our Church. God is evidently forcing the 
needs of that great and populous country on the 
attention of the world, and it may be truthfully 
said that " Ethiopia is stretching out her hands 
unto God." It must also be accepted as a sign 
of the times that, when our late General Con- 
ference was electing Bishops, there sprang 
up a strong desire to place a Bishop in Africa, 
whose life-work it should be to spread our 
work over that continent. And when the 
hour came to select a man, the thought of 
a large majority of the body settled, almost 
spontaneously, on "William Taylor. He was 
accordingly elected and ordained to be our 
Bishop for Africa. Bowing to the will of the 
Church, as indicating the will of God, he accepts 
the office. He goes into the perils of that 
sickly climate fully aware of its risks and 
responsibilities. But he goes fearlessly and 
hopefully, knowing that the God of Missions, 
who has been with him in the past, will be with 
him there also. He believes in success through 
the prayers of the Church and the help of the 



Two Missionary Pioneers in India. 237 

Holy Ghost It is to be presumed that the 
General Missionary Committee will make him 
a liberal appropriation with which to start his 
work ; and that after stirring up the slumbering 
energies of the Liberia Conference, he will push 
out into the regions beyond its lines. There is 
said to be a vast plateau in Central Africa where 
numerous tribes abound, and where the climate 
is so healthy as not to be fatal to white men. 
of such a place is to be found, he will surely find 
it. "Who that reads these lines will not breathe 
an earnest prayer, saying, " O God, bless the 
labors of Bishop Taylor in the dark continent 
of Africa ! " 



238 Some Heroic Lady Missionaries. 



CHAPTER XV. 

SOME HEROIC LADY MISSIONARIES. 

" My soul is not at rest ; there comes a strange 

And secret whisper to my spirit, like 
A dream at night, that tells me I am on 

Enchanted grounds. Why live I here ? The vows 
Of God are on me, and I may not stoop 

To play with shadows, or pluck earthly flowers, 
Till I my work have done, and rendered up account." 

— Dr. Nathan Brown. 

N India and China there are millions of girls 
and women who, because of the ways of the 
people, can only be taught to know Jesus by 
lady teachers. Gentleman missionaries cannot 
reach them as they do ignorant women in this 
country. That Christian ladies might be sent 
to do this work, a society of Methodist ladies 
was formed at Boston, in 1869. It looks like a 
perilous work for single young women to leave 
their native land, and sail thousands of miles to 
a strange and trying climate, to live with a 



I 



Some Heroic Lady Missionaries. 239 

strange people for the sole purpose of telling 
them the old, old story of the blessed Redeem- 
er's love for the souls of men and women. Well, 
it is a very great thing for any young lady to 
undertake. It requires great faith, much love, 
rare courage, and genuine loyalty to Christ and 
to the perishing heathen for whom he died. 
But great as are the sacrifices this holy work 
demands, this " Women's Foreign Missionary 
Society " has never lacked accomplished young 
women willing to undertake it. 

The first money given to this Society came 
from a lady whose daughter, when dying, said 
to her mother, " If I do not get well I would like 
to have papa give as much money to the mis- 
sionaries every year as it requires to take care 
of me." That sweet girl passed into the 
" Beautiful Land," and her mother, in honor of 
her memory, gave the first offering made to the 
Society "for the support of a Bible woman in 
Moradabad, India." Thus, by her dying wish, 
that lovely maiden not only encouraged the 
ladies of the Society, but also caused many to 



240 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

hear the words of Christ in India who had never 
before known even his glorious name. 

This Society was scarcely organized before an 
accomplished lady, Miss I. Thoburn, whose 
heart had been a fountain of desire to work 
among the women of India, offered to bear its 
banner to the zenanas of India. The ladies had 
but three hundred dollars in their treasury. 
This sum was only sufficient for her outfit. The 
ladies felt sad at heart, and for some moments 
looked at each other in silent despair. Presently 
one of their number, Mrs. Edwin F. Porter, as 
if suddenly moved by the Holy Spirit, rose and 
spoke with a spiritual force which made her 
words arrows of celestial fire. At the close of 
her spontaneous address, which was like an 
inspiration, speaking of Miss Thoborn, she 
used these memorable words : 

" Shall we lose her because we have not the 
needed money in our hands ? No ; rather let 
us walk the streets of Boston in our calico 
robes and save the expense of more costly 
apparel. Mrs. President, I move the appoint- 



Some Heroic Lady Missionaries. 241 

ment of Miss Thoburn as our missionary to 
India." 

These were noble words, and the ladies re- 
plied, as with one voice, " We will send her ! " 
The response was not the expression of an un- 
grounded, empty enthusiasm, but of a faith 
which rested on God's promises to bless the 
efforts of his Son's followers. Ladies who were 
ready to wear calico instead of silk, if that were 
necessary to the procurement of money, were 
justified in pledging themselves to the support 
of Miss Thoburn in India. 

That they made no mistake in this their first 
missionary, Miss Thoburn's work in India abun- 
dantly proves. She was well educated ; she 
had the tastes and aspirations of a lady of cult- 
ure ; she loved the refinements of civilized life ; 
she was full of energy, and was devoted to the 
service of her Lord. All this she consecrated 
to the women of India. She organized schools 
for girls ; she visited the zenanas to tell their 
inmates about Jesus ; she made herself beloved 
and very useful. After she had spent several 



242 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

years of toil in India, she was asked by an 
American lady who was visiting her field of 
labor, 

"Do yon not sometimes long for your own 
land of privilege ? " 

Her reply deserves to be embroidered on cloth 
of gold. With features all aglow with heavenly 
fire, she said, " Don't go home to excite pity for 
me ! I am happy here in my work. 1 am busy 
here, and we all feel so. Our work lies here ; 
and when sickness comes, and we turn our faces 
homeward, we leave our hearts behind." 

This was the language of a genuine mission- 
ary, working for Jesus out of pure love for the 
souls in whose behalf he died. Nor was she the 
only heroic lady willing to give up home and its 
delights from the same great motive. There 
was Miss Clara A. Swain, who accompanied 
her. This lady had studied medicine, and she 
sailed with Miss Thoburn as a medical mission- 
ary. She did good service until her failing 
health compelled her to return with reluctance 
to her native land. 



Some Heroic Lady Missionaries. 243 

Miss Fannie J. Sparkes, a young lady of Bing- 
hamton, N. Y., nurtured in a home of love, and 
well educated, when converted, in 1869, heard a 
whisper in her heart asking, " Will you go to 
India, alone, as a missionary for Jesus ? " 

To this startling question, after severe strug- 
gles of mind, she finally answered, "Yes." 
Shortly after Mr. Judd. a returned missionary, 
asked her if she would go to India. Her pastor^ 
her presiding elder, and the ladies of the Mis- 
sionary Society, pressed the same inquiry. 
These wishes of her earthly friends satisfied her 
that the whisper in her heart was from her 
beloved Lord. Still there was the unwillingness 
of her parents to part with her yet to be over- 
come. They loved her with tender affection. 
Her heart was bound to theirs, and while they 
hesitated to give their consent, she suffered 
intensely. Jesus bade her go. Her parents 
wished her to stay at home. Whom did she 
love best? Jesus gained the victory, and her 
parents withdrew their opposition for his sake. 
She sailed to Bombay, and having arrived safely, 



244 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

she was sent to Bareilly to take charge of a 
Girls' Orphanage. There she did "grand and 
glorious work," teaching many native orphan girls 
the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus. 

Eight years of faithful labor in a trying cli- 
mate wore out her strength, and compelled her 
return to her native land. Great was the joy 
of her friends when she reached her father's, 
home. After his first greeting, that happy 
father said, " Let us sing ' Praise God, from whom 
all blessings flow ; ' " and the assembled house- 
hold sang it with a joyousness that may be more 
easily imagined than described. 

Eighteen months at home restored her 
strength, despite the labor of speaking at one 
hundred missionary meetings in various parts of 
the country. Then she returned to her much- 
loved Orphanage in Bareilly. Her farewell 
words before sailing were pitched to a lofty and 
heroic key-note. She said, "Saying good-bye 
is not all sacrifice. There is so much joy in the 
thought of carrying the light of life to heathen 
women, that had I a thousand lives, I would 



Some Heroic Lady Missionaries. 245 

gladly lay them all upon the altar of this 
service." 

Most noble lady, what generous mind can 
refuse to honor thee for these truly heroic 
words ! 

There is in the cemetery at Binghamton, 
K". Y., a tombstone bearing this simple inscrip- 
tion: "Nellie; died at sea, aged 21 years." 
Beneath are the words, "She hath done what 
she could." Who was this youthful lady who, 
though young when translated to heaven, had 
" done what she could ? " 

She was one of our lady missionaries to China, 
the wife of the Rev. S. L. Baldwin, whose mis- 
sionary record will be written on the chief 
corner-stone of the coming Chinese Methodist 
Episcopal Church. When Nellie became his 
bride she cheerfully accepted the perils and 
sacrifices of the work to which he was self -con- 
secrated. Her devotion to her chosen vocation 
was beautifully shown the last time she knelt at 
the paternal family altar. As the farewell 

prayer went from quivering lips to the ears of 
16 



246 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

our elder Brother in heaven, every eye but 
Nellie's was filled with tears. Rising from her 
knees she quietly seated herself at the piano, and 
in a voice made clear and strong by the inspira- 
tion of faith and love, she sang, 

" Yes, my native land, I love thee ! 

All thy scenes I love them well ; 
Friends, connections, happy country, 

Can I bid you all farewell ; 
Can I leave you, 

Far in heathen lands to dwell." 

This sweet singer was only nineteen years 
old. Yet she was no mere sentimentalist, but a 
pure young soul intelligently consecrated to 
Christian work in China. What she did after 
arriving at Foochow proved, beyond all question, 
that she was speaking in earnest when shortly 
after the above scene around the family altar 
she uttered her last words in America, saying, 
" I do not regret the step I have taken. I go 
cheerfully, fully determined to do all the good 
I can." This high purpose she executed, quickly 
acquiring the language of the people, and heart- 



Some Heroic Lady Missionaries. 247 

ily entering into her husband's labors. But less 
than two years sufficed to sap the sources of her 
strength, and compel her to take ship for her 
native land. She passed from the great wide 
sea to her reward when the vessel was six days 
from port. Her earthly career was brief but 
beautiful, and her rest is glorious. 

Let us now view the father of a sick, mother 
less infant, kneeling alone in his chamber and 
fervently praying. " Spare the life of my 
child, O Lord ! " he cries, " If thou wilt save 
her, I dedicate her to thy service as a missionary 
to heathen lands." 

Heaven kindly answered that father's prayer. 
The life of his beloved child was given him. 
Her name was Carrie L. M'Millan. Yery 
singularly, as she grew up and while she was 
yet a little girl, she secretly cherished the 
thought that her life-work was to be done in 
India. And when she began to study geography, 
and to trace on the map the ocean paths to India 
and the location of the great cities of the east- 
ern world, she did so, thinking, 



24:8 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

" My school-mates and teachers little think I 
shall see those places." 

When only seven years old she was happily 
converted. Then her love for the Saviour be- 
came the root of a fond undying desire to realize 
her inward thought. And when she blossomed 
into young womanhood, she told these secret 
longings to her pastor and his wife, who, know- 
ing her fitness for missionary work, took the 
proper steps to bring her name before the 
directors of our Woman's Missionary Society. 

While her case was pending, her father told 
her, for the first time, of his prayer for her in- 
fant life, and of the dedication he then made of 
her life to missionary work. And he added, 

" I hope, Carrie, you will yet live to fulfill this 
vow ! " 

Then this girl, whose heart was already over- 
flowing with desire for work among the heathen, 
rejoiced with exceeding joy. She saw the con- 
nection between her fond father's prayer and 
her missionary longings. She was satisfied that 
her long-cherished thought was a seed sown by 



Some Heroic Lady Missionaries. 249 

the chief of Missionaries, even by Christ the 
Lord. 

She was appointed in due time. Then came 
the test of her devotion. To quit her home- 
nest, where a father's love had brightened her 
young life, and to venture, a defenseless maiden, 
across the measureless sea into a strange land 
was a sterner thing to do than it had been to 
imagine in her young day-dreams. Her father 
also found it a bitter trial to say adieu to his con- 
secrated child. His heart shrunk from it as 
from a living death. But he said it, though it 
was with anguish that cannot be told. After it 
was said and his loved daughter had left to 
take ship, he poured out his grief into the ear 
of his Gympathizing Lord. Nor did he do this 
in vain. The Spirit comforted him, and when 
he left his place of prayer his face was radiant 
with the light of God's face, and he said to his 
son, 

" I have gained the victory ! Glory, glory ! 
I am glad Carrie is gone, and glad she has such 
a message to deliver ! " 



250 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

This devoted lady entered zealously and suc- 
cessfully on her work of teaching Jesus. The 
secret of her success was made clear by what 
she wrote back to her friends, " Of my work in 
India," said she, " Hove it. I love the people 
with a peculiar love. I am glad I have a place 
in this field. I am glad that prayer for India's 
redemption is being answered. The time is 
coming when India's daughters, so long bound by 
the fetters of superstition, shall hear the voice 
of Christ. The door of the zenana shall swing 
back, and in the light of God's countenance 
they shall come forth." 

These are words of love and faith. These are 
the forces that move both men and women to 
face the trials of mission work. And by these 
the world shall be won to our Christ. 

One more sketch from the portrait gallery of 
our " "Woman's Foreign Missionary Society " is 
all we have to insert in this chapter. It is that 
of Miss Susan B. Higgins, the daughter of a 
devout Methodist preacher, a graduate of the 
High School at Chelsea, Massachusetts, and 



Some Heroic Lady Missionaries. 251 

subsequently a very superior teacher in the 
public schools of Boston. When sixteen years 
old she became one of our Lord's disciples. As 
his follower she could not help thinking much of 
missionary work, and she was much inclined, 
when missionary collections were being taken, 
to write, " / give myself" But her native 
modesty kept her from doing so. 

At last, after much self-scrutiny, hesitation, 
and fear, lest she should ever go without being 
sent, she made up her mind to offer herself. In 
this state of mind she went to a quarterly meet- 
ing of the society where, at the close of its ses- 
sion, a lady who knew her worth remarked to 
her, " I think we will send you as a missionary 
sometime." 

" Any time" promptly replied Miss Higgins' 
with an emphasis that led the lady to look in- 
tently into her eyes, and to rejoin, 

" Apply, then ; apply ! " 

She went home in very thoughtful mood. 
Her room-mate met her with the inquiry, 
" Susan, are you going to be a missionary ? " 



252 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

" I am going to apply," was her decisive 
answer. 

She did apply, but there was no vacancy. 
She would have to wait for an opening. The 
resignation of a lady recently appointed, how- 
ever, soon opened a door for her. She was 
appointed to Yokohama. 

Then came the tender farewells, the long 
voyage, the hopes and fears of a sensitive 
Christian lady on entering upon a novel and 
difficult task. All these trials she passed with 
courage and hope. Her success was assured 
from the beginning. The Japanese children, 
won by her Christian gentleness, soon loved her. 
Her prospect was bright with promise when, 
after less than a year of devoted labor, she was 
seized with sudden sickness. Her physician 
frankly said, 

"You may get well, but it is very doubt- 
ful." 

" I am in the Lord's hands," she replied, very 
calmly. " Living or dying, I am his." 

It was her Lord's good pleasure to take her 



Some IIekoic Lady Missionaries. 253 

to his upper sanctuary^ and she died with a song 
of triumph on her faltering tongue. 

O, noble Christian maiden! Her brow is 
crowned with glory to day, and her example 
lives to fire other kindred young souls with that 
heroic zeal which promptly fills every gap made 
by disease and death in the ranks of our mis- 
sionaries. 

Would the reader know more of the elect 
ladies who have been sent abroad by the 
Woman's Foreign Missionary Society? Let 
him read Mrs. Wheeler's book on the subject. 



254 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

MISSIONARY SCENES AND INCIDENTS. 

" Keep thou Zionward thy face, 

Ask in faith the aid of grace, 
Use the strength which grace shall give, 

Die to self — in Christ to live." 

— Bernard Barton. 

IN* 1873 sixty persons were assembled on a 
Sabbath day in a hall at Modena, Italy. A 
Christian Italian, named Signor A. Guigon, 
preached a sermon. Dr. Vernon, our pioneer 
missionary to Italy, followed him with an ad- 
dress, giving the reasons why American Meth- 
odism had made its appearance in that country. 
This was the opening scene in the history of 
the Italian Methodist Episcopal Church. It was 
not an imposing spectacle ; nevertheless, as the 
tiny acorn grows into the future majestic oak, 
so, from this humble beginning, our Church ex- 
pects to become a mighty energy in the hand of 




St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church, Rome 



Missionary Scenes and Incidents. 257 

God in the regeneration of that land of beauty 
and of song. 

In Home, in 1875, on Christmas-day, another 
scene was witnessed by the angry Romanist 
priests of that proud city. This was nothing 
less than the dedication of St. Paul's Methodist 
Episcopal Church in the Via Polo — the first 
Italian Protestant Church in Rome. The 
building was crowded. The Pope, cardinals, 
monks, and priests were filled with impotent 
rage at being compelled to behold a Protestant 
edifice for the use of native citizens standing on 
ground once owned by them — a fact which 
through long centuries they had been able to 
prevent by the power of the sword. But the 
providence of God, by giving civil and religious 
freedom to a united Italy, had now made such 
an edifice possible. Dr. Yernon dedicated this 
beautiful little church ; and three Italian Meth- 
odist traveling preachers preached in its pulpit 
on that eventful Christmas-day. The signifi- 
cance of this fact was seen in the stir it created 
throughout the city. While the papal authorities 



258 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

gnashed their teeth, the friends of liberty re- 
joiced; the press was jubilant; and the tele- 
graphic wire bore the glad tidings, not only 
through, but beyond, the kingdom of Italy, to 
Paris and London. 

So remarkable was the presence of this church 
in the " eternal city," that Dr. Vernon subse- 
quently said, " Often while meditating within 
this bright little church, I ask myself, c Is this 
real, here where until the autumn of 1870 the 
papal pall hung over all, dark and dark as the 
shadow of death ? ' " Well, it is real ; and if 
saints in heaven are made acquainted with the 
progress of the Church on earth, the unnumbered 
souls of martyrs whose bodies were tortured to 
death by the cruel persecutions authorized by 
the Roman curia, must drink in fresh draughts 
of joy as they fall before the throne and thank 
the Redeemer for this sign of the coming, final 
overthrow of the " man of sin." 

Let us now pass in imagination from the city 
of the Pope to the capital city of Mexico, on our 
own continent. In this latter city the simple- 



Missionary Scenes and Incidents. 259 

minded Montezuma once reigned in all the 
splendor of a semi-civilized monarch. His pal- 
ace was an immense and costly structure. It 
had long been the home of the Aztec kings. 
More than three hundred years ago the greedy, 
blood-thirsty Spaniards, led by the conquering 
Cortez, fought their way to the conquest of this 
city. Not content with the submission of Mon- 
tezuma to their power, those ruthless Spaniards, 
their priests especially, looked with a covetous 
eye on the palace and treasures of the fallen 
king. Regardless of right and honor, they 
ousted the unfortunate Montezuma from the 
house of his ancestors and seized his country, 
his palace, and his riches in the name of the 
Spanish king and of the Pope. The Eomish 
priests soon took possession of the palace, 
changed it into a vast monastery, which they 
filled with monks imported from Spain, and 
made it the head-quarters of their movements 
for bringing the Mexicans into submission to 
their creed. By robbing the people of their 
lands and treasure they made this monastery 



260 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

of San Francisco, as they named it, immensely 
rich. At one time they kept four thousand 
monks in idleness and luxury within its walls ; 
but the Mexican people, under their priestly rule, 
though ceasing to be idolaters after their old 
Aztec fashion, gained little religious benefit by 
the change. They were ignorant idolaters still, 
though their idols bore the names of Mary, 
St. Peter, and other Christian saints. The rule 
of Rome in Mexico was never a blessing, but 
a perpetual curse to its people. 

No ; not a perpehcal curse. There came a 
time, not many years ago, when, wearied with 
both kingcraft and priestly rule, the Mexicans 
shot their king, created the Mexican republic, 
and confiscated the stolen estates of the priests 
for the benefit of the nation. 

In 1873 Bishop Haven and Dr. Wm. Butler 
went to emancipated, but still spiritually blind, 
Mexico to establish Methodism. Going to its 
chief city they found portions of the confiscated 
Convent of St. Francisco in the market. It had 
been divided into lots. Its central part, includ- 



Missionary Scenes and Incidents. 261 

ing cloisters and a beautiful court, had been 
leased and turned into a circus for the entertain- 
ment of the public. It was, however, well 
adapted for a mission house and church. Hence, 
the Bishop and Dr. Butler made overtures for its 
purchase. The priests set themselves to keep 
this former seat of their power from being sold 
for Methodistic purposes. It required both 
skill and patience to overcome their hostile 
measures. But this was accomplished at last. 
Our Church purchased the title, fitted up a 
beautiful church, a printing-office, and preach- 
er's home on the chief seat of ancient Aztec 
royalty and of Eomanistic priestcraft in the city 
of Mexico. On Christmas-day, 1873, this edi- 
fice, so long devoted in its old shape to the in 
terests of the kingdom of darkness, was solemnly 
dedicated, in the presence of six hundred in- 
terested spectators, to the religion of Christ as 
understood and enjoyed by the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church. Was not this a victory, not so 
much for our Church as for the Christ and for 
the best interests of the Mexican people ? 



262 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

Romanism never hesitates to shed Christian 
blood where it has the power. Its history is 
symbolized by the scarlet cloaks of its cardinals ; 
and were it in full possession of the govern- 
ment in these United States, it would, without 
doubt, stain the pavements of our city parks with 
the blood of martyrs. Its unchanged character 
was shown in Mexico when the missionaries of 
our own and other Christian Churches began to 
win converts to the true faith. Hence our mis- 
sionaries had scarcely completed their prepara- 
tions for evangelical work before they were 
warned that a society of Roman Catholics had 
been formed in Mexico for the purpose of killing 
our superintendent and other missionaries, with 
some distinguished Protestant laymen. This 
murderous spirit was not confined to the city of 
Mexico, but showed itself in other places where 
missionaries of our Church and of other Chris- 
tian bodies had begun to teach the pure truth. 
That these breathings of slaughter meant actual 
murder was proven by riotous assaults on 
churches in several cities, and by the killing of 



Missionary Scenes and Incidents. 263 

at least twenty of Christ's disciples, in the space 
of little more than a year. One word of author- 
ity from the chief priests of Romanism in Mexico 
would have prevented these murderous proceed- 
ings. That word was not spoken. But the 
emancipated Mexican press did speak, boldly 
charging the Romish Church with responsibility 
for these villainous deeds. Another voice was 
heard also. It spoke from Washington, warning 
the civil authorities in Mexico that they must 
protect the lives and property of American mis- 
sionaries. These voices were effectual. The 
Roman priests saw that by fostering mobs and 
murders they were sowing dragon's teeth which 
might produce an army before which they and 
their institutions might become as chaff driven 
by a fierce wind. Hence, though they still stir 
the hatred of their people against our mission- 
aries, they now rarely excite them, at least not 
openly, to deeds of death, Nevertheless, their 
evil spirit is kept alive in their ignorant follow- 
ers, and knowing that it may at any time pro- 
duce sudden explosions, our missionaries labor, 
17 



264 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

conscious that they are in constant peril of fall- 
ing at their posts. But they toil on, trusting in 
their Master, ready to serve him either in life 
or death. Surely, they are moral heroes ! By 
them and their successors Mexico will assuredly 
be conquered for the Redeemer. 

Our next scene is in a plain Methodist Epis- 
copal Church in Danville, Ohio. It is Sabbath 
evening. Adam Poe, the presiding elder of the 
district, has been preaching. The audience is 
deeply impressed. God is manifestly in their 
midst. Twenty souls are at the altar. They 
cry to the Lord, who answers their prayers and 
fills their believing souls with his pardoning 
love. They fill the house with shouts of praise, 
all but one of them. That one is evidently 
a German, a young man apparently about 
twenty-eight years of age. The pale cast of ■ 
thought is on his devout face. A cloud of set- 
tled sadness is on his well-developed brow. 
When the meeting closes he slowly rises from 
his knees, and, with a heavy heart, moves away 
toward the door. When his foot touches the 



Missionary Scenes and Incidents. 265 

threshold he pauses, casts a lingering look on 
the rejoicing converts, who seem loth to quit the 
spot on which their Lord admitted them to his 
fellowship. As he stands gazing on their joy 
his manner suddenly changes. A new light 
flashes from his tearful eyes. He presses his 
way back through the slowly departing crowd 
to a corner of the church. There he kneels, 
prays for a few moments, then rises, his face 
ablaze with the glory of a great inward joy, and 
with a loud voice shouts forth the praises of his 
Redeemer's love. 

What produced this sudden change in the 
young man's manner and condition of mind? 
It was the effect of a blessed thought whispered 
in his heart by the unseen Spirit of his Lord. 
While he stood gazing at the rejoicing converts, 
thinking of his long previous and thus far in- 
effectual search for the Pearl they had just 
found, the invisible One moved him to ask, 
" Is there not bread enough in my Father's 
house ? " With that inquiry there came such a 
conception of the fullness and sufficiency of the 



266 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

merits of Christ, that to doubt, as he had long 
done, seemed no longer possible. With that 
vision before his mental eyes, of Christ's ability 
to save even him, he had kneeled and prayed, 
looking alone on the infinite merits of Jesus. 
While in that solemn act he had suddenly felt re- 
lieved of the burden on his conscience. He was 
filled with such a sense of divine forgiveness and 
of the love of Christ that his heart overflowed 
into loud expressions of praise and gladness. 

But why dwell on this young man's conversion 
rather than on that of the others? Because 
there was a far greater significance in it than in 
theirs. I do not mean to him or to them per- 
sonally, but to the world. That young man was 
no ordinary character. He was destined to be 
Heaven's instrument in bringing many of his 
countrymen to the knowledge of the truth. His 
name was William Nast, the father of Meth- 
odism among the Germans. 

Shall I give you a few points in his early his- 
tory ? He was born in Germany, nurtured by 
devout parents in the doctrines and worship of 



Missionary Scenes and Incidents. 267 

the Lutheran Church, and, when fourteen years 
old, converted and impressed with a burning 
desire to prepare himself to become a mission- 
ary in foreign lands. His parents, desirous to 
have him enter the ministry of the national 
Church, sent him first to a preparatory academy, 
and then to the University of Tubingen. In 
these institutions he acquired a high degree of 
scholarship ; but, owing to the skeptical teaching 
of Professor Bauer, and to close associations 
with Strauss, his classmate, he made ship- 
wreck of the faith which had filled his heart in 
his youthful days. Therefore, when he bade 
adieu to the classic halls of Tubingen, he aban- 
doned his former purpose to enter the ministry, 
and resolved to devote himself to the study of 
art, science, and polite literature. 

But having once tasted the love of Christ, his 
heart refused to be satisfied with mere literary 
food. He became as unresting as a vessel on a 
wind-swept sea ; and, hoping to find abroad the 
repose he could not gain at home, he sailed for 
New York in 1828, when he was twenty-one 



268 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

years of age, secretly resolved to become a 
better man. > 

This resolution remained like a seed on dry 
ground for a year. Then his watchful Father 
in heaven directed his steps to the mansion of a 
lady in Pennsylvania, whom he served as tutor 
to her family. This elect lady was a member of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church. In her house 
he met Methodist preachers. Their conversa- 
tion and the spirit of her sanctified home revived 
his early convictions and prepared him, when 
he removed to West Point to teach German, as 
he did after a year, to receive deep impressions 
from two devout young officers who had been 
converted under the preaching of the chaplain 
of that military post. 

His convictions grew deeper under the 
sermons of James H. Howe, stationed at West 
Point, and through the reading of religious 
books. A sermon preached by Dr. Fisk, at the 
annual examination of the cadets, added to his 
seriousness, but it was not until he attended a 
camp-meeting on the banks of the Juniata, in 



Missionary Scenes and Incidents. 269 

1832, that the utmost depths of his heart were 
broken up. His penitence was then profound, 
but either through the peculiar structure of his 
mind or some misconception of the nature of 
faith, though he stood forth bravely as Christ's 
disciple, he did not attain a clear and abiding 
sense of his acceptance in Christ until on the 
memorable occasion before described. From 
that time William Nast's faith was such as 
to make him in name and deed "a man in 
Christ." 

Some time prior to this delightful experience 
a venerable mother in Israel, while suffering 
what seemed to be a mortal sickness, had said 
to the then despondent Mr. Nast : 

" Be of good cheer and praise the Lord. He 
has chosen you to bear the Gospel message to 
your countrymen. Thousands of Germans will 
be saved through your instrumentality !" 

This remark was prophetic, though at the 
time it was made William Nast scarcely dared to 
hope for his own salvation, much less to regard 
himself as God's chosen vessel to convey good 



270 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

tidings to others. But now that he was made one 
with Christ by a living faith, he began to feel 
the impulses of desire to pluck his fellow- 
countrymen as brands from the burning. Hence 
he took steps to enter our ministry ; and, being 
admitted to a Conference and appointed to Cin- 
cinnati as German missionary in 1835, he made 
his appearance in that busy city, where many 
people from his native land had settled. 

His reception among those Germans was not 
encouraging. Those of them w 7 ho belonged to 
the Lutheran Church w r ere mere formalists, who 
regarded spiritual religion as fanaticism. Others, 
not of any church, were utterly indifferent to the 
truths of the Gospel. Mr. Nast had no church 
especially set apart for their use. His heart 
burned with desire to do them good, but he was 
among them as a lonely lamp surrounded by 
icebergs. Yet he did what he could, holding 
services for Germans in the English-speaking 
churches and in halls. He also preached to 
them in the streets, gave them tracts, and visited 
them at their homes. Nevertheless, despite all 



Missionary Scenes and Incidents. 271 

his patient, prayerful labor, he could only report 
at the end of a year three converts and twenty- 
three serious souls, of whom twelve met in class. 

The friends of the German work in Cincin- 
nati were discouraged, and the next year the 
Bishop sent our patient toiler to form a circuit 
over a space which extended three hundred 
miles, and embraced many towns and cities 
which had Germans among their populations. 
Over this wide extent of country our patient 
itinerant moved monthly, scattering good seed 
which, though not immediately productive, 
sprang up at length and brought forth a blessed 
harvest of German Methodist churches. 

After one year of such wide-spread labor, Cin- 
cinnati again called for Mr. Nast. He returned, 
repeated his efforts, secured a German chapel, 
and before the year expired rejoiced over a 
little German Methodist Episcopal Church 
numbering thirty- six members. 

Encouraged by this partial success, the friends 
of the German work rallied round Mr. Nast, 
and furnished funds for publishing a German 



272 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

paper, tracts, and books, to the editing of which 
he gave much of his time, besides preaching 
wherever he found opportunity in and around 
Cincinnati. 

One Sabbath evening, in 1839, a young Ger- 
man physician, finely educated, but by no means 
religiously inclined, sat near the pulpit in which 
Mr. Nast was to preach. When Mr. Nast took 
his text, this proud young worldling said to 
himself : 

" I will look that preacher right in the face 
and see if I cannot make him laugh." 

Then, gazing intently on Mr. Nast, he became 
so interested in his topic that he soon forgot his 
idle and wicked purpose. Presently the preacher 
said, 

" There may be a Saul among us whom God 
will convert into a Paul." 

This remark was God's arrow. It went 
straight to the young physician's heart and in- 
flicted a wound which none but the divine 
Physician could heal. Happily the young man 
looked to the great Healer of souls, found remis- 



Missionary Scenes and Incidents. 273 

sion of sins, joined the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, and became, under God, the father of 
the Methodist Episcopal Church in Germany. 
His name was Ludwig S. Jacoby. 

The above-mentioned prophecy of the mother 
in Israel respecting Nast was now in a fair way 
to be fulfilled. His labors had already laid the 
foundation of our German work in America ; 
and by bringing Mr. Jacoby into the Church he 
had provided instrument-ally the man destined to 
be the founder of our Church in his fatherland. 
The seed sowed so patiently by the modest 
William Nast has grown and become a glorious 
harvest — in two countries. Surely God crowned 
this good man's missionary work with abundant 
honors ! 

We will now turn our attention once more to 
India and take a peep at the incidents of our 
missionary work in that country. They are 
gathered from an excellent work by Rev. Dr. 
T.J. Scott. 

Near the village of Majea, Dr. Scott heard of 
a famous fakir, whose abode was in a tomb 



274 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

which held the ashes of a man and of his widow 
who, in the days when the rite of suttee flour- 
ished, was burned alive with his dead body. 
There were fifty such tombs in the grove, which 
was surrounded by a thick matted hedge of 
thorns. Here the old fakir had lived a her- 
mit life some thirty years. Dr. Scott deter- 
mined to see him. Having, by a mere chance, 
found the only path by which his retreat could 
be reached, he entered it, and saw a venerable 
looking old man with long unkempt gray hair 
and beard. His only covering was a black, 
coarse blanket thrown over one shoulder and 
drawn round under the other arm. He was 
moving about looking like a "grim goblin." 
The missionary hailed him, saying, " Peace on 
you, old man ! " 

" Who are you % " responded the devotee 
with gruff surprise. 

u Who am I ? " rejoined the doctor. 

"Yes, who are you, thrusting yourself in 
here ? " 

This was said savagely, but Dr. Scott replied 



Missionary Scenes and Incidents. 277 

pleasantly, "I am a missionary, old man, come 
to see you." 

" Why have you come here ? " demanded the 
fakir threateningly. 

" Come to see you, my old friend," said the 
doctor. 

" No one is permitted to come here," growled 
the devotee. 

" You see I have come," replied the mission- 
ary, with such good humor that the old man's 
rigid features relaxed and his lips wore a smile. 

Encouraged by his changed aspect, Dr. Scott 
asked him several questions concerning his faith 
and hope, to which he replied with the usual 
conceit of his class. Finally the missionary 
asked, " Have you a wife and children ? " This 
question excited him to rage. "Don't use such 
language here ! " said he. The doctor apol- 
ogized, and thus restored the old man to partial 
good humor. Nevertheless, he requested Dr. 
Scott to leave, and, starting before him, led the 
way out. As the missionary followed, he 
asked, " What do you eat, old man ? " 



278 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

-Putting on a mysterious manner the poor 
creature said, " God feeds me." 

" Do you eat the fruit of these mango-trees ? " 

" Do the trees bear fruit twelve months ? " he 
replied. 

" But who feeds you ? 

" God, I tell you." 

This was said with increasing sharpness, and 
the doctor bade him adieu and passed out from 
his wretched retreat. As he w T as leaving the 
neighborhood a superstitious old man told him 
some w r onderful stories of the fakir, such as 
that he lived without eating, and that he could 
work almost any miracle. " No," said the mis- 
sionary, " you are a better man than he, for he 
seems to be very ill-tempered indeed." The 
old man bowed and felt flattered. The doctor 
walked away, musing in his heart over the 
conceit, self-deception, and misery of the old 
fakir hermit. 

"While Dr. Scott was talking one day to some 
village people a native said to a passer-by, " Come 
and hear of salvation ! " This was uttered with 



Missionary Scenes and Incidents. 279 

a most sardonic leer. Dr. Scott entreated him 
not to trifle with so serious a matter, after which 
the fellow left the assembly saying, * Give me 
a village, and I will become a Christian." 

In one village a Moslem teacher stirred up 
some fellows of the baser sort to ask Dr. Scott 
impertinent questions. The doctor ceased talk- 
ing, when the Moslem pushed a coarse, brazen- 
faced fellow forward to make a pretended reply. 
Seeing that nothing good could be accomplished, 
Dr. Scott, after rebuking the Moslem, rose up and 
left. As he walked away the crowd followed 
him, hooting uproariously and clapping hands. 
To this gross insult Dr. Scott only suggested 
that, if he should report their conduct to the 
English authorities, they would all be punished. 
This intimation silenced them at once, and the 
Moslem teacher abjectly apologized for the up- 
roar. The fellow did not fear God, but both he 
and the villagers stood in awe of British law. 

In another village where the people heard 
Dr. Scott with attention, an objector asked a 
question which he evidently thought would con- 



280 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

found the doctor. " If Christ be God," said he, 
"and a true incarnation, let him appear and 
show himself to us this evening, and we will 
believe on him." 

" Do you think Earn a true incarnation ? " re- 
sponded Dr. Scott. 

" Yes," rejoined the objector with emphasis. 

" Well," retorted the missionary, " if Earn be 
a true incarnation, let him appear this evening, 
and I will believe on him." The objector, 
covered with confusion, made no reply. 

When the English were digging a canal 
which was to be fed by deflecting the water of 
the Ganges from its natural course, the Brah- 
mins declared that their sacred river would 
never consent to quit its ancient bed. Unfortu- 
nately for the prophetic reputation of the 
Brahmins, the river did flow into the canal. 
Then, to save their wounded influence, the 
idolaters spread a report that the river was only 
prevailed on to enter the canal by costly offer- 
ings from the British ! This cunning lie Dr. 
Scott denounced one day, and was hissed and 



Missionary Scenes and Incidents. 281 

hooted in trie most noisy and contemptuous 
manner. Facing the leaders of this uproar, he 
bade them remember their British rulers. This 
was enough. They became as " meek and sub- 
missive as lambs." 

Dr. Scott asked a careless Zemindar one day, 
" What do you think becomes of the spirit at 
death?" 

With an indifferent air he replied, " O, it goes 
out like this, [here he sent a whiff of air from 
his mouth,] and that is the end of it, I suppose." 
Evidently the poor creature was living without 
God and without hope. 

At Baharepoor, amid a crowd of hearers, some 
base fellows asked Dr. Scott impertinent ques- 
tions, ridiculed the doctrines he taught, laughed 
at his singing, impudently asking him to sing 
again. The doctor requested his native assistant 
to exhort, which he did, warning them of their 
danger of hell. 

" O," they replied, " it would be no better 

for us if we became Christians. There is 

Moses Peters, [a renegade from the faith,] he is 
18 



282 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

the greatest liar, rogue, and licentious man 
in the village." 

In vain Dr. Scott assured them that Moses 
Peters was not recognized as a Christian. 
Their hostility was too strong to be overcome, 
and the doctor left. 

One day an old man asked our missionary, 
" If we become Christians where shall we go for 
wives for our sons, or who will come for our 
daughters ? " 

Perceiving that this question was seriously, 
honestly put, the doctor pointed out that there 
were many Christian families growing up in 
India between which marriages could be formed ; 
but the old man went away seemingly delighted 
to think that he had stumbled on an insurmount- 
able obstacle to the Christian religion. His 
theory of caste had blinded his eyes. 

" There is no sin in this village," cried a man 
in a village meeting at Mai Budea, as the mis- 
sionary was speaking of the evil of sin and of 
its remedy. Instantly a half-score of voices re- 
sponded in concert, " We have plenty of sin 



Missionary Scenes and Incidents. 283 

here ! " The objector was thus silenced by his 
own countrymen, who, though willing to confess 
their sins, were not ready to be saved from them 
by Jesus Christ. 

" The gods will surely destroy us in anger if 
we turn to Christ," said an objector to a mission- 
ary at Dawari. 

"If they have power to harm any one," 
replied the man of God, " let them destroy us 
first." 

This fear of the anger of their gods is a 
common plea among the Hindus ; but, says 
Dr. Scott, "this silly fear will not last for- 
ever." 

"The Ganga Jee (the Ganges) is a great 
goddess. We worship her because of her great 
benefits." Thus spoke a bigoted objector who, 
with a swelling air, walked into a group of 
Hindus to whom a missionary was talking on 
the banks of the Ganges. 

"But," replied the missionary, "grass also 
is of great use to man. Why not worship 
it?" 



284 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

" You try and live on grass four days, and 
you will see of what use it is for man," retorted 
the objector triumphantly. 

" And you try Ganges water for four days, 
and see how useless it is for food," rejoined the 
missionary. If not convinced, the fellow was, at 
least, silenced. 

" I worship the sun," said a shop-keeper to 
Dr. Scott, who had been showing some Hindus 
the folly of expecting to get rid of sin by wash- 
ing in the waters of the Ganges. The doctor 
looked at the sun-worshiper and replied, " Then 
you, too, are a great idolater." 

The man retorted, "Bat you English people 
also worship the sun, and have a day set apart 
for it." 

"Not now," said the doctor. "We have 
learned the truth from Christ, and no longer 
worship the sun." 

" Why not ? " queried the shop-keeper. 

"Suppose you hang a lamp in your shop 
to give light to purchasers, and some one 
should come along and, instead of saluting you, 



Missionary Scenes and Incidents. 285 

should salute your lamp, what would you think 
of him ? " 

The amused look of the listeners showed that 
they enjoyed the overthrow of the now silent 
sun-worshiper. But to see folly is not to 
abandon it. 

" What benefit will we receive if we become 
Christians ? " asked a Hindu one day. 

The missionary replied by inquiring, " What 
kind of benefit do you want ? " 

" Food and clothing and lands," rejoined the 
man. 

" But," said the missionary, " do you crave no 
other good ? " 

" What else do we need ? " asked the objector. 
The missionary pointed out the needs of the 
soul, to which the objector replied that the 
Hindu's religion met those wants. The mission- 
ary then appealed to the wickedness of the 
Hindus, and was told that Europeans were 
wicked too. This charge led to an explanation 
of the difference between nominal and real 
Christians; but it was apparent that the vices 



286 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

of nominal Christians were both excuses and 
stumbling-blocks to the heathen Hindu. Shame 
on Christian men who, not being true to their 
name, are stumbling-blocks to heathens ! 

The peepul-tree is an object of worship in 
India. A native teacher, named Paul, said to a 
crowd one day, " You regard the peepul-tree as a 
god, and adore and worship it as a protector, 
but while you put the sacred thread around it, 
and are standing worshiping at one side, along 
comes a camel, which, stretching up its long 
neck, proceeds to make a meal from your god 
on the other. Your god cannot save himself 
from being devoured by an animal." 

The crowd laughed heartily at this and sim- 
ilar illustrations of the folly of idolatry, and 
finally left, apparently well pleased at the mer- 
riment that had been made at the expense of 
their gods. Manifestly their devotion to idols 
cannot be either profound or sincere. Let us 
hope that, seeing its folly, they will soon be won 
to the worship of Him whose glory is above all 
created things ! 



Missionary Scenes and Incidents. 287 

A Brahmin visited Dr. Scott during a fair on 
the banks of the Ganges, and confessed that he 
had learned to doubt the truth of his religion 
and that he was inclined to accept Christianity. 
He said he still conformed to the popular cus- 
toms, but only to escape annoyance. He would 
not openly declare his Christian convictions, be- 
cause, by so doing, he would lose his means of 
support. " In numerous instances," remarks the 
doctor, "genuine inquirers stumble at this 
difficulty." It is a real one, and will remain 
until the non-Christian population cease to 
combine for the purpose of depriving converts 
of their means of livelihood. Yet even now 
faith often proves stronger than fear, and many 
converts heroically profess Christ, even in face 
of threatening starvation. 

While passing through the village of Knar, 
Dr. Scott and his native helpers, on turning 
a corner, came upon a group of children. 
Instantly the little folks turned and ran off, 
exclaiming, " Run ! Here they come who tell 
about Jesus ! " 



288 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

No doubt these little ones had been taught 
by their mothers to avoid Christian teachers, 
lest they should be carried to a foreign land, or 
be bewitched and changed into Christians 
against their will. Alas, poor children ! Could 
they but hear Jesus say, " Suffer little children to 
come unto me," many of them would call upon 
him, as thousands have already learned to do. 

"If it is in our fate, we will adopt your 
religion," was a frequent response of the people 
to Dr. Scott, when he urged them to be saved. 
The popular belief in India is, that inside the 
skull bone of the forehead all the acts and events 
of a man's life are unalterably traced by the pen 
of fate. Hence they ascribe every thing to 
Msmet, or fate. Kismet is very much of a 
hinderance to the missionary in all Oriental 
lands. 

Dr. Morrison's first Chinese teacher was 
Yong Sam Tak, a proud, dogmatic man. Mor- 
rison, then a young man, soon sought to talk 
with him about religion; but the typical 
heathen refused, and expressed his aversion 



Missionary Scenes and Incidents. 289 

to the truth by saying, "My country not 
custom to talky of God's business. 55 

In Christian lands women are more easily 
won to the service of Christ than men. In 
India they are harder to be persuaded. An 
example of this fact is seen in Ajeet Sing, 
(unconquerable lion,) the chief man in the 
village of Lukempore. He heard Dr. Scott 
preach, and seemed likely to become a convert. 
But his two wives, with other village women, 
besought him, with tears and threats, not to 
become a Christian, and he yielded to their 
entreaties. Dr. Scott remarks, that, as a result 
of their greater ignorance and superstition, 
generally the women of India are the greatest 
enemies of the missionaries. 

Another illustration of their hostility to our 
Christ was seen when Dr. Scott asked a Mo- 
hammedan farmer of wealth, "Why, if you are 
sincere, do you not seek baptism ? " This man 
had been an inquirer at the mission house nearly 
two years. He replied, "Because my wife 
refuses to come with me, and, as you will not 



290 Missionary Heroes and Heroines. 

promise to secure me another wife, I cannot 
take that step." This answer was decisive. 
He preferred the approval of his wife to the 
favor of Christ, thus proving that he was 
unworthy of admission to the kingdom of God. 
During one of his missionary tours in India, 
Dr. Scott was obliged to lodge in the mud hut 
of a native helper. A disgusting odor reminded 
him that the hovel must have been used to 
house goats. Smoke from the hearth filled his 
narrow room and tortured his eyes. A school 
of boys, actually yelling their lessons, was kept 
in an adjoining room. There was very little 
comfort to be taken in such a lodging ; but the 
doctor remarks, " If God only blesses our en- 
trance 'among this people with the salvation of 
souls, what a glorious reward ! " While on his 
way to the Himalayas, in pursuit of health, Dr. 
Scott was overtaken by the darkness. He and 
his party missed their way. The road was rocky 
and dangerous. "Wild beasts ranged tho mount- 
ains. Shelter must be found somewhere. 
Presently they reached a portion of a turbulent 



Missionary Scenes and Incidents. 291 

stream which they thought was a ford. Dr. 
Scott drove his pony into the river. The 
creature soon lost its foothold. The water 
flowed over the saddle. The pony kept on, now 
swimming, now floundering, until it seemed 
that both horse and rider must perish. But 
both were plucky, and finally the pony, with his 
dripping rider, reached the opposite shore and 
scrambled up the steep bank. Dr. Scott soon 
found a planter's bungalow. Natives were sent 
out to bring in the rest of the party, and thus 
the peril was happily escaped. 



THE END. 



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This volume is a companion to the above. It contains 
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